


Night Mistress 2

by AuthorA97



Series: Marvel Traveling Universe (MTU) [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: Darcy/Nikki Had A Fucked Up Childhood, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Family Issues, Fighting, It's Marvel So General Sadness From Feels, Mental Illness, Past Child Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Recreational Drug Use, She's a Fucking Sociopath, Suicidal Thoughts, Superpowers, Wish I Could Say She Regrets It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 05:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18046103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorA97/pseuds/AuthorA97
Summary: Well...Morgan can't find a good enough excuse not to bring Darcy along. Lucky for us, huh?





	1. Chapter 00

_ Earth Year: 2012 _

_ Morgan Year: 176 _

 

A fourteen year old girl was riding excitedly on her bike.

The handlebars were covered in reusable shopping bags. They looked too heavy for the bike they were on. They’d been tied to the handlebars. The plastic was screaming against the weight.

Darcy Anderson didn’t care for a lot of things. She had to get these supplies back to base.

She pushed herself the rest of the way back. It wasn’t much, but it was home.

Well home was a nice word for it. The building she was near was one for storage units. Darcy’s home was inside it. Her sister owned one of the storage units outside. They liked it, it was hidden and a ten minute walk from her sister’s house.

She chained her bicycle up near the front. 

She untied the plastic bags from her bike. Darcy carried them as fast as she could to their storage unit. The bags weren’t gonna last long.

Five minutes later, she’d found the correct unit. She was able to lift open the door with her foot.

The walls were covered in various types of blueprints and sticky notes of every color. There were movie posters hung upon various walls, with more papers around them. Some has pictures (mostly women or teenage girls) pinned up with them. Across the shed, there was a girl Darcy’s age, hunched over a set-up metal table. There was a pink lamp over her head, shining down on the blueprint designs.

Beneath the table was a mini fridge and a basket. That was where they put the food.

“Got the stuff!” Darcy cheered, slamming the door shut. She carried in the five grocery bags.

“Did you go over budget?” Her sister asked. She didn’t look up from her designs.

“I had a budget?” Darcy asked, confused.

“The hundred-” Her sister paused. With the air of frustration you usually heard from high strung parents, the sister spoke in monotone. “Darcy. I gave you $100. Where is it?” She interrogated.

“I spent it.” Darcy answered simply.

“On what?” Her sister asked impatiently.

“The food you wanted.” Darcy held out a shopping bag as her alibi.

Her sister yanked the bag away. She peered inside. True enough, the food she asked for was inside. She made quick work of unloading the bags where they belonged: fridge, basket, spare space. When it was done she pulled out a bag of baby carrots, starting to snack on them.

“My change?” Morgan Spencer asked, offhandedly.

Darcy Anderson shook her head. Her eyes darted to the movie posters, her hand fidgeted her the belt loops on her jeans.

“Receipt?” Morgan tried instead.

Darcy, again, shook her head. She sucked her lips in, seemingly biting them to keep words inside.

Morgan let out a long sigh. She was fourteen in human years, but felt her full one hundred and seventy-six when dealing with her twin sister. “ _ Darcy. _ ” She warned.

Her sister groaned loudly. She stuffed her fists into her khaki pockets. She pulled out a crumpled ten dollar bill.

Morgan didn’t reply. Instead she straightened the bill out, flattening all the creases. Once satisfied she put it away in her wallet. “I’ll take it to my other vault later.”

“You have  _ another _ vault?” Her younger sister gawked. “Why?”

The young inventor turned around to her sister. “Where do you think I keep my money?”

“In a bank like someone normal. How many vaults do you have?”

“There’s this one-my planning vault. There’s the valuables vault, and then the weapons vault.”

“Why haven’t I heard about the weapons vault yet?!” Darcy shouted.

Morgan rolled her eyes, brushing off the question. She went back to her blueprints.

“Is it somewhere else in the building? It is, isn’t it? Morgue you  _ got  _ to show me where it is. I’m bored. I’m dangerous when I’m bored. Give me weapons. I’ll be less bored. I promise.”

“Will you shut up for five minutes? I’m trying to build something.”

“What’re you buildin’?” Darcy asked. She was an over excited teenager.

“A new arc reactor for Tony Stark.” Morgan answered, absentminded. She’d learned that conversations with Darcy never led anywhere, that she should multitask if she wanted anything done.

“Doesn’t he have one already? Didn’t  _ you  _ help build it?” Darcy pointed out. She mused with a stack of blue post-it notes.

“Well yes. But the one I built is giving him radiation poisoning.” Morgan explained.

“You built something that could  _ kill _ somebody?” Darcy was surprised. Her sister  _ hated _ killing people. It was her last resort for most Plans. 

“I was in my nineties! Give me a break!” Morgan defended herself. “This one I’m working on should fix the problem...I think.”

“You know, you’re usually more sure when building this stuff.” Darcy commented.

“Shut it. You’re twenty-eight. What do you know?”

“I know that it’s been  _ five months _ since I got to go anywhere!” Darcy ranted. “And  _ one _ of those months was spent in stupid ‘ _ Tangled’ _ . Which doesn’t count as doing something. Need I mention that  _ you _ have been having all the fun? Why can’t  _ I _ go somewhere?”

“It’s not my fault you didn’t want to go to  _ ‘Regular Show’ _ or  _ ‘Once Upon a Time’ _ .” Morgan replied. She erased a few lines on her blueprint to redesign them.

“Because those were  _ boring _ .” Darcy complained.

“I was losing my mind.”

“You lose your mind all the time.” Darcy groaned.

Morgan had a small smirk at that. 

“You wanna know why I’ve been rebuilding an arc reactor?” Morgan asked.

“Because you’re a giant geek who likes moonlights as a nerd?” Darcy taunted.

“Because I’m going back for  _ Iron Man 2 _ , so I can fix Tony.” Morgan explained.

Darcy’s jaw dropped. “So-”

“So if you’d like, you can come with.”

Thus the twins began to Plan.

 

==NM2==

_ MCU _

_ 2008 _

 

A woman was admiring herself in the mirror. Her skin when She liked having her hair bright blonde, though everyone thought it was dyed. The same for her amethyst colored eyes. She was just an oddball. Like, a weird oddball that didn’t even get her spots at the end of the movie.

She liked it that way.

Her housing was shit, so that could be made better. Her roommate apparently liked the house so they were stuck. He liked watching the news too- Nikkette thought he was a boring nerd. Which he most definitely was. Except, ya know, more into training then actually doing anything cool.

But still, she saw the good parts of watching this interview.

Mainly by watching Becky Stark do her absolute best not to laugh.

_ “Been a while since I was up here in front of you. Maybe I’ll do us all a favor and just stick to the cards.” _ There was laughter from the crowd. Nikkiette could see on Rebecca Stark’s face that she was biting her cheek. _ “There’s been some speculation that I was somehow involved in the events that occurred on the freeway and on the rooftop-” _

_ “Sorry, Mr Stark-” _ Nikki saw Rebecca thin her lips as the blonde reporter spoke. She counted that as a laugh. _ “-do you honestly expect us to believe that that was a bodyguard in a suit that conveniently appeared despite the fact that you sorely despise bodyguards?” _

_ “I know that it’s confusing. It is one thing to question the official story and another thing entirely to make wild accusations, or insinuate that I’m a superhero.” _

That Rebecca Stark was keeping a straight face was proof that gods did exist, and none of them were helping her.

_ “I mean, let’s face it, I’m not the heroic type. A laundry list of character defects, all the mistakes I’ve made, largely public.”  _ Nikkiette laughed herself at Rebecca Stark’s expression. She likened it to a balloon that realized it was going to pop, but couldn’t do a thing to stop it. “ _ The truth is...I am Iron Man.” _

_ “ _ _ With me, as the vigilante Night Mistress. That's me. Right here. Bye everyone. _ _ ” _

Then she grabbed Tony Stark and Colonel Rhodes, teleporting them away.

The woman watching dropped her mug. It would have shattered on the ground if the woman’s hand hadn’t glowed dark purple in power. A pillow made of some purple substance appeared to catch the mug.

“Storyline dammit. I missed  _ everything!”  _ The woman shouted, stomping her foot on the floor.

Great, now she had to get to LA! That’s a six hour drive, dammit!

Nikki groaned out her annoyance. She didn’t have a lot of cash either. She’d have to  _ do stuff. _ Like, hitchhike. And leave the dude  _ alive _ . At least until they got a good distance, but  _ ugh _ . General  _ alive _ -ness of other people. Disgusting.

Such a fucking pain in the ass.

Nikki groaned, letting her head fall back so as to really drive the point home that she wasn’t happy with this whole fucking plan.

“Hey Erik! I’m headin’ out!” She called out to the apartment. She slammed the door shut before the man could reply.

She had stuff to do, and it wasn’t going to get done by itself.

But then again...she had time to kill.


	2. Chapter 01

Life had been good for the Starks.

Well as good as life can get when you’re basically the only two superheroes who don’t need a flashing light in the sky. They weren’t the  _ Waynes _ .

Though...one day, I think I can be richer than Bruce Wayne. Without ever once dressing up like a bat. My mom is probably dead, I’m halfway there!

Main point: Starks were doing great.

Right now we were flying towards the Stark Expo. It had taken Pepper, Tony, and I  _ months _ of planning and various other forms of  _ work _ .

Granted, Pepper had done a lot of it. Tony or I would be called away for Iron Man and Night Mistress things. Which included myself coming over to take down a  _ fuck _ ton of gangs, other terrorists, and keeping Iron Man from being dead.

Another kind of villain all itself, of course.

Also, suit upgrades. That had taken some time, mostly for creating them as I’d done mock-up’s back Home.

The new suit had less blue on it. The boots were now straight black, covered in building plates up to my knees. From there I wore speciality black gear that kept out bullets, fire, and various needles. I’d tested it myself- go me. After that came the utility belt which I’d equipped with speciality guns, tiny bombs, a puch where’d I’d put a condensed version of the bo-staff, and one unique button with it’s own unique pouch. Then came the tunic-style flaming-red shirt, that flared like a skirt around my waist. It had long sleeves stretching up to the golden fingerless gloves that served as focuses on my energy blasts. Last but not least the hood was the only thing still blue (with a golden trim rather than red). 

_ “270 at thirty knots. Holding steady at fifteen thousand feet. You are clear for exfiltration over the drop zone.” _ The pilot warned us.

The door of our airplane began to lower. My hood was fixed upright. The metal interior of the hood activated to hold it upright. It got fucked up in the wind. The rest of my suit unfolded from itself. 

“Think you can make the landing?” I asked. While my identity was exposed to the world now, the domino mask stuck around because it had a good comm system.

_ “Uh, hell yeah. I’m way better than you at this.” _ Iron Man replied.

“That’s what you said last time, and you-”

_ “The suit needed a touch-up. I got distracted by that snafu you started-” _

“You mean the catering snafu that  _ you  _ were in charge of?” I countered, rushing to the door.

_ “You brat!” _ Tony yelled, oh so mature.

I jumped out of the plane.

My boots slid the rockets into activation. They helped me keep balance in the air as I flew down towards the stage. I spun around to avoid the fireworks. My gear swirled about in mid-air, making me appreciate listening to Pepper’s input. My hair did too- which is why I’m grateful to have kept it in the hood.

Before long, I saw Iron Man come up rush past me.

Ever a competitive person, I pushed the thrusters on the boots to push me faster. 

In the end, Iron Man and Night Mistress arrived at the same time. The two of us landing side-by-side on stage. Fireworks went off behind us, while showgirls dressed like us started a kick-line. All the while rock ‘n roll music was blasting from the speakers. I doubt many could hear it over their own cheers.

I waved at the cheering crowd. One or two got a finger gun directed at them- they wore  _ Night Mistress _ cosplay, that shit deserves some props. Iron Man did the same to his adoring public. 

Iron Man started the process of taking off the suit. I hopped back onto the runway, clicking a button on my utility belt.

My suit unfurled around me, in swirls of red and blue. I took off the hood, quickly flinging it out so it could unfurl to reveal a blue blazer with a matching golden trim. I slid the domino mask away too. My outfit for tonight was a dressy dark purple top with black leggings and yes the rocket boots. Tony came out wearing a nice black tie suit. 

The crowd started chanting our names.

“It’s good to be back. You missed me?” Tony asked.

“Please, they missed  _ me _ .” I countered, waving at the crowd. A bunch of them went  _ wild _ at that.

“Blow something up!” One guy yelled.

“Hit someone with your stick!” Another shouted.

“I missed you too. Blow something up? I already did that.” Tony replied.

“Hey I’ll hit something with a stick if you throw it up!” I offered.

One person did. It was a baseball.

Pressing a button on the belt, it shot up the bo-staff. It slid together like an odd toy lightsaber before solidifying as the traditional bo-staff everybody loved.

I grabbed the staff, swinging it back so that I could hit the ball.

It went out of the park.

Everyone went nuts again.

I bowed, turning off the staff. It compressed, so I slid it back inside it’s pouch on the belt. “Thank you, thank you. Oh you’re all too kind! Somebody find that. Bring it to me- I’ll sign it.” I promised.

“I’m not saying that the world is enjoying its longest period of uninterrupted peace in years because of us.” Tony remarked to the cheering crowd. “I’m not saying that from the ashes of captivity, never has a greater phoenix metaphor been personified in human history.”

The crowd loved the speech, cheering for Tony at all the right moments. I continued to stand, waving at various people that called out or were standing in the crowd.

“I’m not saying that Uncle Sam can kick back on a lawn chair, sipping on an iced tea because I haven’t come across anyone who’s man enough to go toe-to-toe with me and my badass daughter on our best day.” Tony yelled.

“I love you Tony!” Someone shouted.

“Please, it’s not about me.” People still cheering Tony “It’s not about you. It’s not even about us. It’s about legacy. With that, I hand the spotlight over to my legacy, the amazing Becky Stark.”

The crowd cheered for me as I took center stage. I waved out to them, flipping back my hair and grinning. I moved my hands to my hips, standing almost in a superhero pose, except I was leaning on my hip way more.

“Big mistake, Dad, I’m not giving this back.” I replied.

The crowd gave it the laughter it deserved.

“Ladies and gentleman, this is a big night not just for you and me, it’s for everybody who is watching this at home. For the boys and girls watching, and seeing scientists come up with all their amazing inventions, and inspiring them to make world-changing things of their own. It’s about the people watching this on YouTube over the next ten years, because they couldn’t afford tickets here or weren’t interested in science right now. It’s because of  _ them, _ that we decided to bring back this thing from 1974.”

The crowd applauded for the inspirational speech. Jokes on them, I’m inspiring myself so much right now. I wanna build some armbands that do...something, I’ll work it out later.

“The best and brightest men and women nations and corporations the world over will pool their resources, share their collective vision, to leave behind a brighter future.” I told the crowd, who cheered for that. “It’s not about  _ us _ . Therefore, what I’m saying, if I’m saying anything-” I stretched my arms out. “-is welcome back to the Stark Expo.”

Everyone shouted in joy, throwing their arms up in excitement.

I clapped with them, throwing my arms up with them as the screen behind us began to swirl.

“So folks. Let me introduce to you a special guest from the great-beyond.” I brought the speech to it’s finish. “He’s gonna tell you something really important about this event. With how warmly Dad and I were welcomed, I know you’ll give him the credit he’s due. Put your hands together for Grandpa Stark: Howard.”

The lights dimmed to allow the video to play. Tony and I walked off stage. I blew out a breath once we were backstage. Howard’s voice followed behind us, but I tuned it out.

Tony held out his hand, clapping it on my shoulder. “You did good, Beck. Like a natural.”

I grinned, feeling the rush of being in front of a crowd fade for a moment. “Course I did. It was...a lot of fun.”

Tony nodded. He bobbed his head to the small table they’d set up for us. “Get some water.”

“I’ll do what I like.” I countered, walking up to the water bottle. Tony slipped a hand in his pocket, I noted from the corner of my eyes. As I drank from an Expo water bottle, I caught Tony wincing. He pulled something out of his pocket, glancing at it before smiling at up me.

I turned back to him, seeing not a trace of the fear that I knew he had. “What about you, Dad? You good? That was a lot of action for a guy you’re age.”

Tony just smiled. “Yeah right.” He took up the other water bottle, taking a sip of it.

While he did that, I let my anxiety show. He was dying- I knew that well and good. Even without  _ Iron Man 2 _ coming up I knew that reactor wasn’t healthy for him. When I built it, I knew the materials we used weren’t meant for human bodies in the long term.

Yet all this time, I’d come up with nothing.

Nothing that didn’t involve magic of some kind, or some kind of uploading to a robot. Which no way would Tony agree to it.

But he was gonna die, without telling me. He’d been getting worse for the past two months, all the while he and I were saving the world. He had been letting me do more and more of them alone, or taking the spotlight.

He was getting  _ sick. _

And trying to make me forget.

Like _ hell. _

 

==NM2==

 

Before long, Tony and I were making our way to his car. I was mostly there to see the fans anyway. Because I’d made a Twitter account for Night Mistress- mostly taking pictures with the bad guys I’d just beaten, or stupid memes of myself or Iron Man, people were becoming bigger and bigger fans of us.

Because well...I was really funny.

Happy was walking us to the doors.

“All right, it’s a zoo out there, watch out.” Happy cautioned.

I nodded, adjusting my belt for what to me felt like the hundredth time.  

“Open up, let’s go.” Happy told the security guard at the door. 

The guard nodded. He pushed the door open. Tony walked ahead. I walked just behind him. Worst case, I teleported is out. Which I’m surprised Happy didn’t suggest in the first place. I’m convinced he’s doing it so he can still call himself our bodyguard. 

Anyway.

We were walking through the small crowd of people.

“Hey, nice to see you.” Tong waved at various passers by. “All right. Thank you. I remember you.”

I held up a peace sign to some cameras. “What up!” I cheered.

“Tony, Tony-”

“Becky! Hey Becky!”

“Hey person I don’t know!” I replied to them.

One woman broke through, handing Tony a slip of paper. “Call me.” She suggested. 

Happy intervened before I could make a joke. “Hey, hey, hey, hey. Come on, come on.” He pushed us along. 

As we went down the stairs, people held up photos of Night Mistress. I signed the ones I could under ‘Night Mistress’. 

Tony signed his own pictures of Iron Man. “Hello. It would be a pleasure.” He told them, signing quickly.

“Okay-” Happy tried to move us along. 

Tony ‘ruffled’ the hair of a little boy.  Well it was blocked by an Iron Man mask. “See you buddy.”

The boy held up a baseball, with a curved dent in the side.

“Hey you found it!” I cheered. The small boy held the baseball out towards me. I happily picked it up, signing it as Becky Stark and Night Mistress. “Here ya go, bud.” I tossed the ball back to the boy, who held it close to his chest in excitement.

I was smiling as we continued down the stairs. Tony greeted a reporter. I fist-bumped a fan or two.

We walked past the Stan Lee cameo, of which was the  _ most  _ essential. 

Then we made it out. Alive. 

I blew out a sigh when the doors shut. 

“Come on, Starks. There we go.” Happy urged.

“Very mellow.” Tony mused. 

“Gah...that was a lot of people-ing.” I sighed, running a hand through my hair. After the brush I pulled it up in a ponytail.

“That wasn’t so bad.” Happy told me.

“No, it was perfect.” Tony agreed.

“Oh it was  _ amazing.” _ I agreed, my head rolling back as I groaned. “Just... _ ugh.  _ People.”

Tony snickered at me. I stuck my tongue out at him. That only made him snicker harder.

“Look what we got here, the new model.” Happy tried to distract me. He motioned towards the car pulled up to the side. Though in front of it was a woman. 

“You know I can teleport, right?” I argued to Happy.

“Which is why we got the two seater.” Happy replied. 

“Hey, does she come with the car?” Tony asked.

“I certainly hope so. Hi.” Happy greeted as we came into hearing distance.

I smiled warmly at the marshal, watching the two men walked around the car.

“Hi. And you are?” Tony asked.

“Marshal.” She introduced. 

“Irish. I like it.” Tony remarked.

“Pleased to meet you, Tony.” She replied. She gave me a nod. “Becky.”

I waved.

“I’m on the wheel. Do you mind?” He asked Happy. Our guard tossed him the keys. “Where you from?”

“Bedford.” The woman replied.

“What are you doing here?” Tony asked, while the top of the car sunk down.

“Looking for you.” She answered.

“Yeah? You found me.” He climbed into the car.

“Both of you.” She added, glancing at me.

I walked up, standing beside the car.

“What are you up to later?” Tony asked.

“Serving subpoenas.” She held out two letters. 

Tony winced. “Yikes.”

I took them both.

“He doesn’t like to be handed things.” Happy excused.

“Yeah, I have a peeve.” Tony agreed.

“It’s a new thing.” I added for her sake.

“I got it.” The marshal nodded. “You both are hereby ordered to appear before the Senate Armed Services Committee tomorrow morning at 9 am.” She informed.

“Happy to hear it ma’am.” I replied.

“Can I see a badge?” Tony asked.

“You wanna see the badge?”

“He likes the badge.”

“It’ll make his year to see the badge.”

The marshal showed him the badge. “You still like it?”

“Yep.” Tony answered. He turned the car on, making it roar. “How far are we from DC?”

“250 miles.” I recited.

The car sped off.

The marshal turned to me. “You?”

“Oh I’m going home to sleep.” I replied, immediately teleporting away.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone that’s sticking with me! It means a lot you guys are following the series as it goes.


	3. Chapter 02

Let the record show that one Becky Stark  _ tried _ to sleep.

Instead, she was woken up repeatedly in the night by vicious nightmares that wouldn’t let her have a moment’s peace.

Why am I talking about myself in the third person? It’s insane. Only insane people do that.

So anyway, after the fifth or sixth time shooting upright, I had to puke. Typical, right?

I ran to the bathroom, constantly stuck between heaving and plain puking. Fortunately I was able to make it to the bathroom. When I was done, I felt worse. Well a tiny bit better, because at least I hadn’t vomited blood...which had happened, over the decades.

Pushing my back against the bathroom tile, I let the coldness of it bring me back to sanity. The cold smooth tiles were reminding me that I was in a safe place. That I wasn’t _ Her _ anymore. That I hadn’t  _ changed _ into her.

After fifteen minutes of avoiding a panic attack, I pushed myself to my feet. A relatively easy task. Except that getting up took about five minutes. While my legs hadn’t fallen asleep they were certainly uncomfortable after sitting on them.

“Checks. Checks.” I reminded myself. Standing up on my feet, I wobbled to the counter of the sink. 

The mirror showed my reflection back to me. I let out a breathy sigh. I’d bought a new mirror a few weeks ago, telling Tony and JARVIS that I liked the look. What made it special was that this one had a silver back. It’s in  _ those _ mirrors that vampires don’t have reflections.

So I saw my reflection, and remember to breathe.

“Okay...okay...next check.” Bracing myself, I walked out of the bathroom towards the window. It was shaded right now, but a quick ask would make it so sunlight could come through.

Standing in front of the large windows of Becky Stark’s bedroom, I took one more deep breath.

“JARVIS? Could you clear off the shades?”

“ _ Of course, Miss Stark.” _

The windows changed from the shaded view towards more clear glass.

The sun beamed through.

The heat of the coming summer sun warmed my skin.

My morning eyes squinted away from it.

“Sun check. Pass.” I mused. Taking a step back, I started fixing up my hair. “Hey JARVIS. What time was it?”

_ “The time is 5:48 AM, Miss Becky. Your senate hearing is in twelve minutes.” _

“Well fuck.” I blew out a long breath. “Is Dad there yet?”

_ “He has arrived there, yes, with Happy.  _

“Tony Stark arriving before Becky, the world is falling apart.” I mused, walking to the bathroom again. At least I could touch up my hair, maybe do a quick brush with makeup. “Guess I better get ready, huh?”

_ “That would be in the best interests of everyone, Miss Stark.”  _

I snorted, at his repeated use of calling me that. He  _ really  _ couldn’t stick with ma’am or something? I’m almost offended.

_ But at least I was me. _

_ And not Her. _

 

==NM2==

 

With a handful of seconds to spare, I popped up in a chair besides Tony. The man had gotten used to the teleporting over the months, so he didn’t freak out over it. The people behind me were freaked though.

“-and with Miss Stark unable to-to- Ah.” Senator Stern’s expression was worth this blatant display of power, appearing in my seat like I’d been there the whole time.

“Apologies, Senators, for my lateness.” I apologized, putting down the briefcase I had put together last night. 

(There wasn’t time this morning)

(I’m good but not  _ that  _ good)

“Time zones, I’m sure you understand.” Smoothing out any lines in my pantsuit, I smiled politely at the few Senators that weren’t glaring death eyes at us.

“Thank you, Miss Stark, for deciding to grace us with your presence.” Senator Stern remarked.

“Oh it was no trouble, Mister Senator. I enjoy a good debate as much as the next girl.” I turned to Tony. “Sup.”

Tony held up a peace sign. “Sup, brat.”

“Wow. You can never even tell that I’m adopted.” I joked.

Tony grinned, chuckling. “Did you see Pepper?” He asked.

“No I didn’t. Where is she?” Looking behind Tony, I saw Pepper narrowing her eyes on us. “Hi Pepper. Don’t worry, I’ll be more professional than him.”

Turning back to the Senators, I smiled back with the professional level of expression. Meaning: a polite demure smile, eyebrows primed and ready to arch up, and words forming around my tongue that would get me out of this.

“Mr Stark, Miss Stark, could we pick up now where we left off?” Senator Stern asked. I opened the briefcase, pulling out a few documents to look over while they got Tony’s attention. “Mr Stark. Please.”

Tony turned around- after being yelled-whispered at by Pepper. “Yes dear?”

“Can I have your attention?” Senator Stern requested.

“Absolutely.” Tony replied.

Silence.

“Miss Stark?”

I didn’t answer.

“ _ Miss Stark.” _

No answer.

“Miss Stark, this is serious.”

“No this is a courtroom.”

Beside me, Tony snorted. It was little effort to keep myself from smirking. By then I had the papers organized so everything was ready.

“Let’s get back to the matter at hand.” Senator Stern turned his attention to me. While he was looking at me with annoyance I kept my face impassive. “Miss Stark, is it true that you have certain Enhanced abilities?”

“Yes. I can touch my tongue with my nose.” I showed off. Tony applauded.

Senator Stern narrowed his eyes. “Miss Stark, do you or do you not possess the abilities such as: teleportation, super strength, regenerative healing, heightened senses, and-” Stern looked down at his notes “-laser eyes? Really, they labeled it laser eyes?”

“Well that’s our fault. There’s no real word for what’s she does.” Tony turned to me. “Did we ever figure those out?”

I shook my head. These past few weeks, I documented the powers that I had more for reminding purposes and training. Teleporting, energy from my hands, increased strength (not super strength, but I was comparing it to the Hulk so…), super thick skin, and enhanced healing. My other skills were more nuisance, less noticable. My senses seemed more heightened- hearing, sight, and weirdly _ taste _ . 

But those abilities I wasn’t eager to share. Who wanted to admit they had a heightened sense of  _ taste _ as a superpower? 

Granted this all goes ‘yadda-yadda’ over the skills I already had. My fighting style was the technique of  _ Tai Shing Pek Kwar,  _ which was better for me in hand-to-hand combat. There was my ability with firearms. No time soon would I qualify for  _ ‘assassin’ _ , though that didn’t mean I wasn’t in the runner-ups for it. Lastly there was my technical know-how. Even without borrowing the mind of a Stark, I had a lot of work in mechanics. I was good at coding too- but I consider that a side-thing.

Senator Stern glared. “Miss Stark, do you have these enhanced abilities?”

“Yeah I can do that stuff. Well except the laser eyes but come on, those were just a thing I said.” I answered with an easy shrug. “Why is that up for discussion?”

“Because, Miss Stark, these are powers that have been used to enact crimes such as vigilantism.” Senator Stern explained.

“Okay I understand this is serious...but that’s a funny word.” I commented. At the Death Eyes from Pepper, I sat up straighter in my seat. “Mister Senator, under my purview any and all of the perceived ‘crimes of vigilantism’ might have appeared as such, but in reality they were nothing of the sort. Many of those attacked sought me out for fights, so they should be viewed as self defense, such as Tony Stark’s use of them against the Mark 1 all those months ago. Those that weren’t in self defense were rather myself, minding my own business while taking a walk, when suddenly I heard screaming. What followed was me coming to the aid of people in need, while also getting those people to the proper authorities.”

_ Yeah that’s right, I’m a genius. _

_ And a lawyer. _

_ Graduated salutatorian in my class. _

_ I don’t fuck around. _

“Self defense, you say?” Senator Stern questioned.

“ _ ‘The use of reasonable force to protect oneself or members of the family from bodily harm from the attack of an aggressor, if the defender has reason to believe he/she/they is/are in danger.’ _ ” I recalled. Senator Stern narrowed his eyes at me. “And as stated before, that’s what I did. People attacked me, so I attacked back. I don’t start fights, Senator Stern, I finish them.”

Then, just for the cameras and for my sister watching (wherever that was) I leaned on my elbow and fist to smile brightly.

The Senator knew he was going to get nowhere else with me. He blew out a sigh, moving a bit to my left. 

“Mr Stark, do you or do you not possess a specialised weapon?” Senator Stern questioned.

“I do not.” Tony replied.

“You do not?” Senator Stern repeated.

“I do not.” Tony repeated again. “Well, it depends on how you define the word weapon.”

“The Iron Man weapon.” Senator Stern clarified, becoming more annoyed once more by us.

In our defense, he was just a prick. But I’m not allowed to use that in a legal setting anymore. _ Not since the accident. _

“My device does not fit that description.” Tony explained.

“Well- How would you describe it?” Senator Stern questioned. He was close to his breaking point of us both.

“I would describe it by defining it as what it is, Senator.” Tony stated.

“As?”

“It’s a high-tech prosthesis.” The crowd behind us chuckled. Even I put on a smile, though I hadn’t thought it too funny so the smile dropped soon after the attempt. “That is...That is...That’s actually the most apt description I can make of it.”

“It’s a weapon. It’s a weapon, Mr Stark.” Senator Stern corrected, giving Tony a patronizing look.

“Please, if your priority was actually the well-being of the American citizen-” Tony tried to interject.

“My priority is to get the Iron Man weapon turned over to the people of the United States of America, and to neutralize Night Mistress.” Senator Stern explained.

“Well, you can forget it.” Tony argued.

I leaned forward in my seat. “This is not an issue that can just be set aside. I am Night Mistress.”

“I am Iron Man.” Tony added. “The suit and I are one. To turn over the Iron Man suit would be to turn over myself which is tantamount to indentured servitude or prostitution, depending or what state you’re in. You can’t have it.” Tony explained.

“Look, I’m no expert-” Senator Stern tried to interrupt. 

But Tony has learned from earlier. Also comedy was mostly in timing. “In prostitution? Of course not. You’re a senator. Come on.”

The crowd laughed again. I squared my shoulders back, bolstered by the support from them. Tony turned back to Pepper. I still wanted to keep my cool so I didn’t look.

“I’m no expert in weapons. We have somebody here who is an expert on weapons.” Senator Stern explained. “I’d now like to call Justin Hammer, our current primary weapons contractor.”

Hammer came in from a side room. Or maybe he’d been hidden by the crowd. Actually I couldn’t care less.

“Let the record reflect that I observed Mr Hammer entering the chamber, and I am wondering if and when any  _ actual _ expert will also be in attendance.” Tony remarked.

“Absolutely. I’m no expert. I defer to you, Anthony.” Hammer commented. “Or to you, Rebecca, hi.”

“Father the strange man is talking to me. Make him stop.” I requested blandly.

“Hey. Strange man. Quit talking to my child.” Tony instructed, also blandly.

“You’re the wonder twins without being actually...twins, you get it.” Hammer stumbled. “Senator, if I may. I may well not be an expert, but you know who was the expert? Your dad, Tony. Howard Stark.”

Tony shifter in his seat. I leaned forward on the table, looking over my papers and using the distraction to go on my phone. I went to Twitter to share Tony’s joke, cause it was  _ actually  _ funny so it deserved to be noticed. Unlike Hammer, and his bringing up of people long dead.

“Really a father to us all, and to the military-industrial age.” Hammer rambled on. “Let’s just be clear, he was no flower child. He was a lion. We all know why we’re here. In the last six months, Anthony Stark has created a sword with untold possibilities. Rebecca here got _ superpowers _ ! She’s used them to break  _ walls _ apart, which is the  _ least  _ of it.  _ She _ is trying to convince us that she’s a _ savior! _ And yet, they insist they’re using shields. They asks us to trust us as we cower behind them.”

Hammer turned to us. Tony and I were more bored than  _ ever _ .

“I wish I were comforted, Anthony, Rebecca, I really do. I’d love to leave my door unlocked when I leave the house, but this ain’t Canada.” Hammer stated.

Going to my phone, I tweeted that I wasn’t sure how, but I’m pretty sure Hammer just insulted Canada. Coupled with an apology to the country.

“You know, we live in a world of grave threats, threats that Mr and Miss Stark will not always be able to foresee. Thank you.” Hammer have a small bow to the crowd. “God bless Iron Man and Night Mistress. God bless America.”

Like, eight people clapped honestly. A few more did it purely for show.

Hammer took a seat down the table. 

“That is well said Mr Hammer.” Senator Stern thanked. “The committee would now like to invite Lieutenant Colonel James Rhodes to the chamber.”

Tony sat up. I kept my focus on the documents in front of me. Which  _ yes _ contained the speech I gave early and facts to back it up. The rest was just paper to doodle on.

“Rhodey? What?” Rhodey walked in. Rhodey walks in, Tony gets up to greet him “Hey, buddy. I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Look, it’s me, I’m here.” Rhodey greeted. “Deal with it. Let’s move on.”

“I just-”

“Drop it.”

“All right, I’ll drop it.”

“Hey Rhodey.” I greeted blandly, not looking away from the papers.

“Becky.” Rhodey greeted back as he took his seat.

“I have before me a complete report on the Iron Man weapon, and the actions of Night Mistress vigilante compiled by Colonel Rhodes.” Senator Stern explained. “And, Colonel, for the record, can you please read page 68, paragraph five?”

“You’re requesting that I read specific selections from my report, Senator?” Rhodey asked.

“Yes, sir.” Senator Stern replied.

“It was my understanding that I was going to be testifying in a much more comprehensive and detailed manner.” Rhodey remarked.

“I understand. A lot of things have changed today. So if you could just read-”

“You do understand that reading a single paragraph out of context does not reflect the summary of my final-” Rhodey pointed out.

“Just read it, Colonel. I do. Thank you.” Senator Stern ordered.

“Very well. _ ‘As neither person operates within any definable branch of government, Iron Man and Night Mistress presents a potential threat to the security of both the nation and to her interests. _ ’” Rhodey read off. For a single moment, Tony seemed concerned by the report.

But Rhodey had our back.

“I did however, go on to summarise that the benefits of Iron Man and Night Mistress far outweigh the liabilities and that it would be in our interest-” Rhodey carried on.

“That’s enough Colonel-” Senator Stern tried to stop Rhodey from undermining the argument.

“-to fold Mr and Miss Stark-”

“That’s enough-”

“-into the existing chain of command, Senator.”

“I’m not a joiner, but I’ll consider Secretary of Defence, if you ask nice.” Tony offered. The crowd behind us laughed. “We can amend the hours a little bit.”

I moved the microphone in front of me closer. “I’ll take director of the FBI.”

Senator Stern ignored us both. “I’d like to go on and show, if I may, the imagery that’s connected to your report.”

“I believe it is somewhat premature to reveal these images to the general public at this time.” Rhodey countered. 

“With all due respect, Colonel, I understand.” Senator Stern explained. He did understand, he just really wanted to fuck us over with it. “And if you could just narrate those for us, we’d be very grateful. Let’s have the images.”

Rhodey braces himself. The screens across from us lit up with images of the military bases. I opened my StarkPhone.

“Intelligence suggests that the devices seen in these photos are, in fact, attempts at making manned copies of Mr Stark’s suit. This has been corroborated by our allies and local intelligence on the ground-”

I typed away on it, searching for the information I needed.

“Indicating that these suits are quite possibly, at this moment, operational.” Rhodey finished.

“Hold on a second, buddy. Let me see something here.” Tony leaned across Rhodey’s desk space.

I sat up, holding my phone towards the screen closest to me. They both lit up with a black text box. Mine greeted me in a polite  _ ‘WELCOME MS STARK’. _

“Boy, I’m good.” Tony praised. “Ah look at that, Becky, you got it too.”

“Faster than you did it, too.” I pointed out. “Take that, old man.”

“Not  _ that _ old.” Tony countered. The crowd around us was only more confused as we went on. “We commandeered your screens. We need them.”

“In the spirit of fairness, it’s time for some transparency.” I added.

“Now, let’s see what’s really going on.”

“What are they doing?” Senator Stern demanded from the people with authority in the room.

“If you will direct your attention to said screens, I believe that’s North Korea.” Tony introduced.

A video of a failed mech-suit played. It ended with blood splattering across the screen.

“Can you turn that off? Take it off.” Stern instructed Hammer. 

“I have Iran here.” I played the video.

The suit was marginally better than the other. In that, it took off for a moment before it crashed and burned.

Hammer was inept at even turning off the screen.

“No grave threat here.” Tony stated. “Is that Justin Hammer? How did Hammer get in the game?”

The corner of my lips turned up as Hammer showed in the next video on Tony’s screen. Hammer was talking to a man inside a smaller version of the Iron Man suit.

“Justin, you’re on TV. Focus up.” Tony instructed.

“Oh fancy.” I praised.

It seemed to work. Until the top half spun a full 180. The test pilot inside screamed.

_ “Okay, give me a left twist. Left’s good. Turn to the right. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.” _

Hammer pulled the plug on the TV.

I applauded, sarcastically.

“Wow. Yeah, I’d say most countries, five, ten years away.” Tony turned to me. “Hammer Industries, twenty.”

“I’m thinking 30.” I admitted.

“Thirty? Really?”

“Yeah.”

Hammer rushed to the microphone at his seat. “I’d like to point out that that test pilot survived.”

Senator Stern was regretting every decision he made today. Including getting out of bed. “I think we’re done is the point that he’s making. I don’t think there’s any reason-”

“The point is, you’re welcome, I guess-” Tony stated.

“For  _ what _ ?” Senator Stern asked.

“Because I’m your nuclear deterrent.” Tony clarified. “It’s working. We’re safe. America is secure. You want my property? Want my kid to stop cleaning up the big bads of the world? You can’t have it. But we did you a big favor.”

He stood up, turning to the cameras behind. While I turned to give the camera an Office look.

“We’ve successfully privatised world peace.” Tony held up his hands for peace signs.

The crowd clapped while Tony stood before them, like a diva under a spotlight. Quickly I sent a request it Twitter for people to take the image of Tony right now and photoshop it to him be even more dramatic. It would be some good entertainment until the next argument.

“What more do you want? For now! I tried to play ball with these ass-clowns.”

_ ‘First celebrity to slip ‘assclowns’ into a conversation (like, naturally), I will donate 10k to your favorite charity. Video footage or it doesn’t count.’ _ I tweeted.

“Fuck you, Mr Stark. Fuck you, buddy.” Senator Stern replied. I gave him two raised eyebrows for that. “We’re adjourned. We’re adjourned for today.”

“Thank you, Senators, for giving us your time.” I spoke as I stood up to my feet. Gathering up the documents, I pointedly ignored Tony’s continued pandering to the crowd. “Really. Also apologies. Mostly thanks, for putting up with us.”

Tony came back to the table. He picked up his sunglasses. Then he blew kisses to the Senators.

With a deep breath, I turned after him. I gave an apology look to Pepper and Rhodey, who were both looking unsure if they were okay with making me an orphan.

“You’ve been a delight.” Senator Stern lied.

 

==NM2==

 

The woman walked down the road. She stopped at a shop with TVs in the windows.

“Seriously? They still have these.” The woman complained. “Ugh. 2009. What a shithole.”

Nikki saw Tony Stark appear on the TV, so she listened to him speak. Even more so when she got glimpses of Becky Stark behind him.

“ _ My bond is with the people. And I will serve this great nation at the pleasure of myself. If there’s one thing I’ve proven it’s that you can count on me to pleasure myself.” _

The woman snorted. “Awesome.” She chuckled.

Becky came up next.

She got out her phone.

No  _ way  _ that Morgue was gonna smooth talk her way out of giving the camera that stupid fucking smile. 

_“I thank the Senators for this opportunity to clear the air. I do_ not _shoot laser eyes_.” Then she winked, as if to tell the people watching _‘or do I?’_ _“Good bye.”_

Then she teleported off from camera.

Nikki burst out laughing, stopping the video to grin widely at the screen. “Holy fuck she can teleport?! I wanna teleport!” Nikki tucked the phone back in her jean pockets.

She went back to walking down the street. She had a destination in mind, with plenty of time to get there.

“I’m gonna teleport. Imma find out how to teleport. Just to annoy her. Fuck I can already see her face when she finds out I can teleport.” Nikki told herself. “ _ Oh  _ I can do so many of the murders if I can teleport.  _ Wow this is gonna be fucking cool _ .”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who’s ready to fucking die?
> 
> Also this fic/author won’t spoil Endgame. If you do, I will liberate you of your kneecaps.


	4. Chapter 03

_ I knew this song and dance. I knew what she would do this time. _

_...I think. _

_ So as I dreamt on, and saw her face staring back at me from an ornate mirror, I knew what to do. _

_ “He’ll hate you.” My reflection made a sinister grin. I gave a withered glare back. “For turning into  _ me _.” _

_ She’d been doing this for ages. “I am  _ nothing _ like you.” I seethed. Though, there wasn’t a lot of heat behind it. “I’m not you.” _

_ The reflection smiled darkly, showing off her white teeth. _ “Yet.”

==NM2==

My phone started ringing. It woke up from an otherwise terrifying dream. I clicked the green button.

“Hello?” I mumbled, pushing myself up in bed. Nothing happened. Plus there was still a ringing.

With annoyance, I reached for my Infinity Bag. Stretching my arm out to reach inside, my fingers touched a buzzing phone.

I pulled out an old style flip phone. It belonged to Mr Spencer- before he got an iPhone and left  _ this  _ just lying around for any person to take.

Answering the phone, I hit speaker. “What the  _ fuck  _ do you want. I’m  _ busy  _ you over-privileged whore.”

No response. 

I clicked the phone shut. Tossing the flip phone back in the Bag I muttered swears about stupid whores.

_ “Miss, I feel I should alert you to the intruder at your window.” _

My eyes widened.  _ ‘Did she really just try to Scream phone-call me? That bitch is dead.’ _

Getting out of bed, I stumbled around my room to look for a shirt. Or at least not-pajamas.

_ “Should I notify the police or Sir?” _

“Neither. I know who it is.” I sighed, deciding on a blue sweater. “Open the window before she smashes it. If you don’t mind, JARVIS.”

_ “Very well.” _

A panel on the wall of windows slid open.

I let out a sigh. “ _ There _ . Are you hap-”

The intruder threw a knife to my face.

I swore, ducking to the side to avoid the blade. My own hand glowed bright yellow. “Great! Now I have to repaint that!” I blasted it her way. 

She was standing in front of the open window, so the most I could see was her silhouette from the streaming sunlight. I used my own energy to attack her other knives, luckily not causing more damage to the room.

After one blast, the backlash of it sent the intruder flying off into my wall. 

I huffed in annoyance. “JARVIS. Lights. 50 percent.”

_ “Yes Miss.” _

“And JARVIS? Blind Eye Protocol.”

_ “Are you sure?” _

“Definitely.”

The room lit up, showing me in better detail what she looked like.

It was a woman with dark skin, wavy blonde hair, and dark purple eyes. She was dressed up for a night on the town, with a dark green I’m gonna say pantsuit except with shorts instead of pants. There was a gold belt around her waist, and she was wearing matching gold heels and earrings.

I stared at her in surprise.

The woman smirked. “I’m Nikette Stevens, but you’re gonna call me Nikki.” Her purple eyes glinted in mischief. “Miss me, sis?”

“... _ you idiot! You broke Rule #14!” _

Nikki groaned up to the ceiling. “Its just  _ one time _ -”

“No wonder I kicked your ass like it was  _ nothing _ ! You wore hooker heels!” I ranted, rushing up to her side to smack her.

Nikki blocked me- with her arm, so I got to hit  _ something.  _ “Ow! They looked cute!”

“Only Pepper Potts can wear heels because she can  _ murder  _ with those things!”

“I could too!” Nikki yelled.

“ _ Like hell you will!” _

“Alright! Alright!  _ They’re off _ !”

I blasted them with energy, leaving nothing but a smoldering pile of plastic.

Nikki glared at me. Those stopped being scary when she was six.

==NM2==

The rest of the day was a chaotic mess to say the least.

Or, when I’d managed to not kill Nikki for an hour. A real trial.  _ She was getting too fast to catch. _

When we both settled down it was time for breakfast. 

Nikki sauntered into the kitchen. She had brought her suitcase in the night before, so she wouldn’t borrow my clothes. Good thing too- Nikki tended to get blood or  _ sexual fluids _ all over her clothes. She was wearing a dark red knight top with shoulderless sleeves, a gray mini skirt, and a pair of high heeled boots.

I sneered at her, genuinely disgusted. She sneered right back.

“High heeled boots are the exception.” Nikki reminded me, as she hopped onto the counter. “Remember? Cause I  _ did  _ learn to fight in them.”

“How the  _ fuck  _ does  _ that  _ make a difference to me right now?” I asked her, walking past to get inside the kitchen. My need for food was stronger than her will to annoy. “Whatever. I’m tired. You make me tired.”

Nikki snickered. “You’re an old hag. Waking up makes you tired.”

“That is the depression and you  _ know it _ .” I accused. Nikki gave to argument to that. “What do you need to consume?”

“The unborn.” Nikki answered. “Along with flesh stripes of the damned.”

“Eggs and bacon, got it. Drink?”

“Smoothie.” Nikki answered. “Strawberry, maidservant. Chop-chop.”

“Make it yourself. I’ll get the unborn.” I remarked, going to the fridge. “But you have to cook-”

“I know I have to cook the bacon.” Nikki hopped off the counter. She began searching the cupboards for the smoothie mixes. Yes I had those- for all the crappy ones that Dummy would make so that I could make proper ones that just looked like his. It has saved my life on many a day. “Cause the smell of meat still makes you gag like me in middle school.”

I gagged at the unfortunate accompanying mental images. “Oh I hate you.” Pulling out the eggs, I walked to the stove.

Nikki just hummed- indifferent. “How much-”

“Four scoops of the dust, two cups of ice, then 16 oz of water.” I answered without thought. “I know it’s double. I want one too.”

“If I make you a smoothie, you have to make-”

“I’m already making you eggs and giving you free board. What, do I need to bring you guys to fuck?”

Nikki grinned, dumping in the ingredients. “Wow. So generous.” She pushed the cap on it.

“Hey wait no I didn’t mean-” My phone rang- buzzing annoyingly. I answered it. “Hello?” Nothing. It was the wrong phone again. “Author’s Name- didn’t I get custom ringtones?”

“Maybe your phone is stupid.” Nikki chuckled.

“Shut up, whore.” I took the other phone- the StarkPhone- answering it. “This is she- who deigns to be heard?”

Pepper’s voice came through.  _ “Your father is a-” _

Nikki turned on a blender. It screeched, cutting off whatever Pepper was saying. 

“What?” I pushed the phone closer to my ear. Also leaving the room, any distance away from the chaos that was my sister. “Pepper could you repeat that?”

_ “Did he really just  _ donate _ my modern arts college toon to the Boy Scouts of America?!” _ Pepper asked. _ “Because that’s what this is telling me! Did you know about this?” _

“No I did not.” I replied, annoyed as the blender got louder. Now I had  _ two _ family members to hurt. “I’ll deal with it, Pepper in a-  _ don’t you dare!” _ I snapped at Nikki.

Nikki pretended not to hear me.

_ “Those are MY dino shaped oatmeal packets and I swear- _ look I gotta go.”

_ “You better tell him-” _

“What?! Why do I have to tell him?!”

_ “I’m sick this morning- which sucks because if I wasn’t sick I could’ve stopped him from doing something this stupid!” _

I’ll deal with it later. Gotta go.” I ended the call, marching off to the kitchen. “Whore put the oatmeal away!”

“Fine. I’ll have vodka for breakfast.” Nikki countered. She went to look for it.

“No! No alcohol for breakfast! We were having eggs and bacon like normal pe- I know,  _ I know we’re not normal people don’t give me that look _ ! Fine! Take the fucking oatmeal. See if I care!”

Nikki smirked, like the brat I should’ve left in that apartment where I found her all twenty years ago.

“You know what? I don’t even have time for all your shit.  _ I  _ have to deal with  _ my _ half of the gene chain.” I stormed out of the kitchen, running towards the lab.

Nikki laughed the entire time.

==NM2==

I typed in my code.

_ “Miss it’s important to know-” _

“I don’t give one full  _ shit. _ ” I growled. The door opened. Just as it did the music cut off.

Tony was sitting in front of the computers, which were all on screen saver mode. If I didn’t already know he was dying, I would be even more pissed than I already am. “Nu-uh!” He scolded, before starting to chug down the smoothie.

“ _ Unscrew this mess!” _ I yelled at him. Showing him my phone screen, I showed the most recent call was Pepper. “Pepper is one step away from  _ murdering you with her heels _ . You know what? I’m inclined to help!”

“I’m actually really busy, right now, so if you could wait-” Tony requested.

“No way. Nu-uh. I am not dealing with Angry Pepper. That’s your job as the boyfriend, to deal with Angry Pepper!”

Tony ignored that remark. “Keep your business.” He instructed me, getting up and walking away from his table.

“She said you donated her  _ entire _ modern art collection to the-” I ranted.

“Boy Scouts of America.” Tony supplied.

“-Boy Scouts of America?” I continued to rant.

Tony stood up, backing away from me. He toyed with the many Iron Man holograms scattered around the place, disposing of the upgrades he didn’t like. “Yes. It is a worthwhile organisation. I didn’t physically check the crates but, basically, yes. And it’s not ‘her’ collection, it’s  _ my  _ collection.”

“No, you know what? I think I’m actually entitled to say ‘ _ Pepper’s _ ’ collection considering the time that she put in, over ten years, curating that. That’s almost half my life.”

“It was a tax write-off. I needed that.” Tony explained. “And I thought you don’t like the art collection.”

“It doesn’t matter that I don’t like it!” I ranted, still stalking towards him. “What matters is that Pepper does! Besides that, there are more important things to yell at you about!”

_ Nikki upstairs, probably drinking vodka for breakfast anyway. _

_ The fact that you’re dying and trying to hide it from  _ me.

_ Ivan Vanko coming to the Expo soon. _

_ Did I mention that you’re a lab-hog? _

“Where  _ is  _ Pepper?” Tony asked.

“She had a cough- she stayed home.” I answered. Tony walked towards Dummy. “Come on- will you just talk to me for five minutes?”

“Dummy. Hey, stop spacing out. The Bridgeport’s already machining that part.” Tony instructed Dummy, completely ignoring me.

“You’re hogging the lab. My suit needs upgrades- and I have other projects I want to work on. That’s hard to do when you never let me use the lab.” I remarked.

“There’s plenty of time for you to have the lab!” Tony countered. “Just got a few things to finish up for the Expo.”

“Really? You care about the Expo?” I snarked.

In the movie, he totally does. It makes sense that he would care. Now though it seemed like every part of it was pushed on me or Pepper. My Stark inbox was full of emails talking about the Expo, events, security, background checks, hell even food fenders emailing me about shit I don’t have time for.

Now I have Nikki upstairs. She’s being a pain in the ass- which isn’t unusual, it’s actually therapeutic to yell at her- that I would like to stop being a pain in the ass.

Plus a father-figure who has decided to just up and die without telling me, probably thinking I don’t already know. Despite being the one that put the damn thing in his chest in the first place via car battery and loose scrap. Does he really think so low of his own kid?

“Pepper is sick? Did you talk to her? Same room as her? I need you to wear a surgical mask. Just in case. Is that okay?” Tony asked, ignoring me in general.

“You know where you can shove that surgical mask?” I snapped at him.

“There’s nothing more important to me than the Expo.” He continued. “It’s my primary point of concern.”  _ ‘Yeah cause clearly telling me you’re dying isn’t important.’ _ “I don’t know why you’re-”

“Because you’re not talking to me! Because the Expo isn’t  _ my _ brain child, it’s  _ your’s!  _ So why the hell am I doing everything?” I ranted.

Tony went over to the  _ ‘Hope’  _ themed Iron Man painting. My own as Night Mistress was hanging up in my bedroom- mostly to cover up the damage the earlier fight had caused. “Wow. Look at that. That’s modern art. That’s going up.”

“Without a doubt. It’s the next _ Mona Lisa _ .” I snarked. Cause it did look great...just...could he stick with me...before we  _ both _ died?

“I’m gonna put this up right now. This is vital.” Tony stated. He started a rushed walk down the lab.

“Alright fine. Since I’m clearly talking to myself- or Dummy, am I talking to Dummy?”

The bot whirred my way.

“No, no. Dummy no. Go back. Make him another smoothie- like JARVIS tells you how. Don’t- don’t give me that look, I’m mad at him not you. You’re precious and deserve all the love, you dumb baby.” I assured him. Dummy hummed in delight, whirring off. Then I went back to ranting at Tony, who was staring up at the painting. “Okay. Can we talk now?”

“Huh?” Tony turned to me.

“Are you actually listening now or are you just gonna replace the painting that Pepper likes?”

Tony put down the Barnett Newman, hanging on the  _ Hopeful Iron Man _ . “Let’s see what I can get going on here.”

“Okay. Art is not our strong point. You already ignored me on the lab. Do I need to a pull a Pepper and ask about the company?”

“No.” Tony hopped off the counter. I walked up to his side, looking at the art. Tony turned away from me- which I figured was because he didn’t want me to know he was sick. “Company’s fine. Our stocks have never been higher.”

“Pepper and I were talking last night- and I watch the news. We’re fine from a managerial standpoint.” I corrected him plainly.

“You are...Well, if’s messy then let’s double back.” Tony shrugged.

I tilted my head. “How? We already awarded contracts to the wind farm-”

“Yeah. Don’t say ‘ _ wind farm.’ _ I’m already feeling gassy.” Tony requested.

“And to the plastic plantation tree, which was your idea by the way. No matter how you try to spin it to Pepper. It was your idea. Your’s.” I wagged my finger his way. “We give those people a paycheck-”

“Everything was my idea.” Tony beamed.

“-oh no you don’t you piece of shit, I came up with a  _ whole ton _ of crap that you don’t get to poach.” Was my automatic warning. “Clean energy? My idea. No weapons? My idea. Do I need to get into the other technicalities? Pepper has the list- hell I bet _ JARVIS _ has the list.”

_ “I do, Miss.” _

“See?!”

“I don’t care about the liberal agenda any more.” Tony actually turned to look at me, but all I could think about was the arc reactor shining from his shirt with the veins turning a sickly gray. “It’s boring. Boring. I’m giving you a boring alert. You do it.”

Though the words went over my head, I let out a tired sigh. “Do...do what?” My hand reached for my head, pressing at a growing headache. “Fix it? It’s a hard thing to fix.”

“Excellent idea. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” Tony rambled. “I just figured this out. You run the company.”

Slowly, the start-up noise went off in my head. “Yeah, I’m trying to help Pepper run the company. You know- the woman who called me bec-”

“Becky, I need you to run the company.” Tony insisted.

“Pepper and I are trying-”

“Well, stop trying to do it and do it.” 

“You will not give me the information-”

“I’m not asking you to try-”

“-in order to-”

“I’m asking you to physically do it. I need you to do it.”

“I am  _ trying _ to do it!” I snapped. “Trying to s-

“Becky, you’re not listening to me!”

“No,  _ you _ are not listening to  _ me _ !”

“I’m trying to make you CEO.” Tony revealed. I gawked. “Why won’t you let me?”

“...I don’t-”  _ I don’t want this company if it’s an exchange for you. It’s not worth it. Nothing’s worth that. I’m not even Becky Stark. Even if I was, she wouldn’t trade a company for a father. You of all people should know what that’s like. _ “-no.”

Tony grinned, as if mishearing me made everything he was saying better. He reached over to put a hand on my shoulder, stopping at the last second to let his hand hover over me. “I hereby irrevocably appoint you chairman and CEO of Stark Industries effective immediately.” He clapped his hands together, while my eyes moved towards the  _ Hopeful Iron Man. _ “Yeah, done deal. Okay? I’ve actually given this a fair amount of thought, believe it or not.”

_ Of course you have _

_ You’re dying _

_ Settling affairs is just how things go for you _

_ Don’t go. _

_ This universe will suck without you. _

“Doing a bit of headhunting, so to speak, trying to figure out who a worthy successor would be. And then I realized it’s you. It’s always been you.” Tony explained, picking up a bottle of champagne.

“But...you’re still not-” I sat myself down. My entire body suddenly tired as I came to an awful conclusion.

_ Maybe...my being here is making him _ more _ okay with dying. _

_ Maybe knowing he’s leaving behind a good legacy is changing him. _

_ Fuck. _

_ Fuck me. _

_ Fuck no this won’t be how it ends. _

“I thought there’d be a legal issue, but actually I’m capable of appointing my successor. My successor being you. The next generation of Stark, taking up the family business.” Tony held out a glass of champagne to me. So instead all I did was stare at it. “Congratulations? Take it, just take it.”

“I don’t want to  _ take it. _ ” I argued weakly, glaring up at him with eyes too sad to be fierce.

“You’re not taking it. You’re getting it. Just a little earlier than expected. There you go.” Tony made sure the glass was in my hands while he sat down next to me. “You’re legal, right? That was a thing?”

“...born in ‘88, it’s ‘09...I turn 21 in September.” I stated, still kinda thrown by the...company dumped in my lap.

Tony’s smile was more sad now, better hidden behind a poker face that made me shatter inside. He tapped his glass to mine.

While he drank his, there was someone knocking on glass. 

I looked over my shoulder, seeing Nikki standing there with a look of complete betrayal. She shook her head at me. Groaning, I pushed myself to my feet.

“Hey. Who’s that?”

“That would be Miss Stevens, Sir. A guest to Miss Stark.”

Opening the door for her, I blocked her entry to the lab.

“You said no alcohol for breakfast.” She accused.

“I said no _ vodka  _ for breakfast.” At her presence, I was emboldened to drink the champagne. Nikki scoffed in disgust. “Champagne is not vodka.”

“Guess you would know, the alcoholic of the family.” Nikki turned her nose at me, looking only more betrayed.

“Guess you would know about swallowing stuff, being the _ whore _ of the family.” I had another sip of champagne.

Tony walked up. “When did she get here?”

“Last night.” We both answered.

“...Becks you know I support you-”

“What?” I turned to him. Nikki tilted her head in confusion.

Tony was looking over at me then Nikki. “If you...like a specific thing-”

Nikki snorted. “Dude. He thinks you’re gay.”

“What?!” I flinched away from them both. “Oh no.  _ Hell _ no!” Nikki opened her mouth for a joke, immediately closing it and lookin horrified. “See! SEE!? You just thought it and it’s  _ disgusting!” _

“Ugh, so gross.” Nikki shuddered. “I’m not her girlfriend. Never will be. Never  _ want _ to be.”

“Oh. Okay.” Tony glanced at me. “But...um...so-”

“I don’t want a girlfriend.” I replied, swallowing a lot more alcohol now. “You know how Mom dumped me on you?” I remarked. Nodding my now empty glass to Nikki, I made towards the champagne bottle. “She did it to her dad too.”

Nikki waved at Tony, who was looking much more relieved. 

But I didn’t want to think about why he was relieved.

Was it because it didn’t turn out he would have to have  _ that talk _ with his twenty year old daughter?

Or... _ was it because he knew I would still have family when he was gone? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you 3000...the universe will definitely suck without you...jfc I’m gonna experience Emotions.


	5. Chapter 04

_“I’m only getting stronger.”_

_“No you’re not!”_

_“Yes I am. You’re more like me every day.”_

_“I am_ nothing _like you.”_

_“Are you sure about that?”_

 

==NM2==

 

Tony and Happy were training. Boxing, mostly because it was what Tony could do.

I was sitting on the nearby cushioned bench- twirling a pen stylus between my fingers. Nikki was laying across the bench. Her legs were dangling over the side. Her head was resting just out of reach from my leg. In her hands, a knife was being twirled much like in mine.

I’m not saying it’s obvious that we’re twins.

But it’s a near thing.

After the disaster of being handed the company, came the _joy_ of explaining to Tony why my day was more fucked up than his. He’d researched Nikki soon after, with the help of JARVIS. Nikkiette Stevens, daughter of Timothy Stevens and (unknown). Grew up a few hundred miles north of LA, lived a quiet life in foster homes with her brother.

_(“Hold up- brother?” “Brother by dad’s blood. Not mom’s.” “Well I guess that’s- no it’s not what I meant. He still alive?” “...maybe?” “Ugh. The dad?” “Dead- and no I didn’t kill him. I was a few months old!” “So it was a challenge to kill him.” “You’re damn right it was!”)_

No jail time-

_(“Seriously?” “I know. Nikki Stevens is a wet blanket.”)_

-but a few close calls, according to some reports-

_(“Oh!” “Yeah that makes more sense.”)_

Moral of the story: Tony couldn’t find anything wrong with her. A quick DNA test proved blood relation between her and me. None between Tony and Nikki.

_(“Thank the Lord.” “Shut up you don’t believe in God.” “Yeah but if you two were related my head would explode. Clearly a deity is responsible.” “And you’re sure the deity isn’t-” “Shut UP!”)_

Anyway- afterwards I was proven wrong. Pepper’s day was worse. She got told that: her art had been sold to the Boy Scouts, Tony was giving me the company, and I had a sister. So by and large, she had more problems.

She said she would have the paperwork by morning.

Morning.

One whole day to stop this- which wasn’t actually happening because Tony had his mind set on this to my eternal annoyance.

Nikki supported it. Damn her.

I am betrayed by _everyone_.

Shouldn’t she of all people know how much I hate curveballs like this?

“His left foot isn’t in form.” Nikki commented idly, as if wondering why I hadn’t corrected them yet.

“It always is. He’s trying to compensate for Tony’s sake.” I excused, my mind still rushing a hundred different directions at this new development. Seriously, I had to edit _so much_ of my Plan last night. _Ugh._

I mean not that I don’t _love it_ -

“So you’re just letting Happy have improper form?” Nikki asked, vaguely surprised. “Wait I get it. You’re waiting for your turn to kick his ass, thus use it to your advantage.”

Well I couldn’t deny _that_.

“You never could pass up the chance to humiliate someone while teaching them.” Nikki remarked, twirling the knife onto her other hand.

“Well it worked so well on you.” I smiled widely, teasing her. There were some good memories, training a younger Nikki to not be so stupid when fighting. _Aww...such good times...did I ever get pictures? Or videos? Oh I should find those...might make a fun Saturday amongst all these bullshit changes._

Pepper walked into the gym. “The notary’s here! Can you please come sign the transfer paperwork?” She asked Tony.

“I’m on happy time.” Tony excused. He elbowed Happy in the face. Nikki snorted. I hit her forehead. “Sorry.”

“What the hell was that?” Happy demanded, once he got himself back to balance.

“It’s called mixed martial arts. It’s been around for three weeks.” Tony explained.

“It’s called dirty boxing, there’s nothing new about it.” Happy scolded.

“All right, put them up. Come on.” Tony instructed.

Pepper came to me. “You have to sign it too, remember.”

“Oh trust me- I haven’t let her forget.” Nikki grinned, in a way only younger siblings could when finally getting the upper hand.

I pushed her shoulder until she rolled off the bench. She flailed about, yelping up until she landed with a smack.

_Jokes on her- I will_ always _have the upper hand._

“Fine.” I replied, smiling at Pepper as if I hadn’t done a single thing wrong in my life and nobody could prove otherwise so _ha_.

Natasha walked in.

Nikki’s head perked up. She stood up this time, tucking the knife away somewhere I couldn’t see.

Even Tony and Happy stopped their boxing to watch Natasha walk up to Pepper, folder in hand.

“I promise this is the only time I will ask you to sign over your company to your daughter.” Pepper told Tony.

Nikki giggled. I shoved her arm to shut her up.

Natasha walked to me, holding out the folder. I took it, opening it up to see the paperwork. Nikki stood behind me, also reading.

“I need you to initial each box.” Natasha instructed.

Flipping my pen stylus around, I signed. Nikki’s eyes were staring a hole practically into the back of my skull.

Happy and Tony got back to fighting. I pointedly ignored it.

Nikki chuckling. “Your initials are BS-”

“They’re _RMS_.”

“They’re BS-”

“RMS.” I stared.

There was a loud clang.

The ladies in the room turned to the boxing ring. Happy was dazed in the corner, looking like he was trying to figure out when his life got so shitty. Tony was staring at Natasha.

“That’s it. I’m done. What’s your name lady?” Tony prompted in a rush of breath.

“Rushman. Natalie Rushman.” Natasha introduced, cool as could be.

Nikki hugged my shoulders, leaning forward so that her head was beside mine. “Is She your type?”

“I can flip you over my shoulder.” I cautioned.

“So yes?”

I reached back.

“Got it- got it. Shutting up.” Nikki squeezed tighter.

“Front and centre. Come into the church.” Tony ordered.

“No. You’re seriously not gonna ask-” Pepper sighed.

“If it pleases the court, which it does.” Tony countered.

Natasha turned to Pepper. “It’s no problem.” She smiled down at me, glancing at my pen before walking to the boxing ring.

“I’m sorry. He’s very eccentric.” Pepper apologized.

Natasha climbed inside. The entire time, Tony was staring her down while chugging down more of the green smoothie. The two of them had a hard stare down.

“What?” Tony asked her, when she said nothing.

Natasha continued to stay silent. Apparently she knew exactly how to play his cards, and she’d only been here two minutes.

“Can you give her a lesson?” Tony prompted Happy.

“No problem.” He replied, knowing it was better to go along and also not get punched again.

Tony climbed out from the ring. I held my pen over the last box to sign.

Nikki flicked my cheek. “Hey. Sign it.”

“Pepper. Becks. Come here.” Tony decided.

“Whoop Dad is calling. Can’t go ignoring the boss-man.” I stood up from the bench, headed towards them. Nikki flopped onto the bench. I sat down in the second seat, while Tony and Pepper shared the first. “What’s up?”

“What?” Pepper asked Tony, glancing at him then myself.

“Who is she?” Tony inquired.

“She is from legal. And she is potentially a _very_ expensive sexual harassment lawsuit if you keep ogling her like that.” Pepper explained, using careful wording that told Tony to agree or else he’d sleep in a dog house.

“I need a new assistant. You’re working with the kid-” Tony explained.

“Actually no, I’m working with you still. It’s Becky that needs an assistant.” Pepper explained. I winced while Nikki walked over to stand behind my chair. “I’ve got three excellent potential candidates.” Pepper told me. “They’re lined up and ready to meet you.”

“She doesn’t have time to meet. She needs someone now. I feel like it’s her.” Tony explained.

“What do you mean you’re working with Dad? I thought you were sticking with me!” I asked.

Pepper gave both of us looks. “Tony, no it’s not. Becky, you and I both know who can actually get your father to do the things he’s supposed to be doing.” I groaned. “Yes. So you’re getting a new assistant.”

“Can I volunteer?” Nikki asked, raising her hand while once again sounding smug.

I scoffed. “I would _never_ have you for an assistant.”

“What, you prefer-”

“Name _one thing_ an assistant does.” I ordered.

Nikki stalled. “...well I know they-”

“Not all of them have sex with their boss.”

“I know nothing about being an assistant.” Nikki answered. I threw my hands up to say _‘see?!’_ “Hey I was gonna say I wouldn’t do the sex thing with you. You’re taste in people is disgusting-”

I glared over my shoulder at her. _‘She’s so very lucky there are witnesses around._

“But I like that one. She’s cool.” Nikki nodded her head towards Natasha.

My eyes rolled before I could stop them. _‘Oh you would think that. The Black Widow is practically your ideal life.’_

“How do I spell your name, Natalie?” Tony called out.

“R-U-S-H-M-A-N.” Natasha answered.

Tony tapped down on the table. He googled _‘Natalie Rushman’_.

“What, are you gonna Google her now?” Pepper asked.

“I thought I was ogling her.” Tony countered.

“He googled me earlier. I’m actually impressed.” Nikki grinned.

“That’s because the only pictures of you online are inappropriate.” I snarked.

“So?”

“Wow. Very, very impressive individual.” Tony complimented to the online Natasha.

I tapped the table, getting the same results on my side of the table.

“You’re so predictable, you know that?” Pepper sighed.

Tony was continuing regardless. “She’s fluent in French, Italian, Russian, Latin. Who speaks Latin?”

“No one speaks Latin.” Pepper informed.

“No one speaks Latin.” Tony agreed.

“It’s a dead language.” Pepper explained. “You can read Latin or you can write Latin, but you can’t speak Latin.”

Tony glanced over his shoulder to Pepper. “Did you model in Tokyo? ‘Cause she modelled in Tokyo.”

Nikki glanced at the pictures. “Damn.” She praised. She patted me on the shoulder. “You’re doomed.”

“I hate you.” I replied.

“Well-”

Tony hummed.

“She belongs with Becky.” Nikki stated. “Come on. Keep your lady friend. Let Becky have some fun-”

“Quit it!” I ordered.

Nikki ignored me. “Come on, you know that you need Pep more than Becky does.”

“Stop helping!” I ordered.

“Besides-”

“I said stop! Enough! Silence!”

“I need her. She’s got everything that I need.” Tony remarked.

“Great! So you can take her.”

“Methinks the Lady doth protest too much.” Nikki commented under her breath.

_I give up._

There was a loud thud from the ring.

“Oh, my God! Happy.” Pepper yelped. She hopped up from the seat.

“That’s what I’m talking about.” Tony praised.

Looking over, I saw Natasha holding Happy in a head lock using her thighs.

Nikki clicked her tongue. “It would be more effective if she squeezed his throat.”

“It’s a reflex move, not a real one. He tried to punch an assassin. This level of attack is expected.” I whispered to her.

Pushing myself out of the seat, I began the walk to the ring. Natasha had untangled herself from Happy. She stood perfectly prim and proper, smoothing out the wrinkles in her outfit. I smiled thinly. It had been funny to see- got some of the tension out of my shoulders- but it didn’t change the fact that _everything had changed._

“I just slipped.” Happy lied.

“You did?” Tony replied.

“Yeah.”

“Looks like a TKO to me.” He rang the bell, signalling match over.

Natasha walked out from the ring. “Just- I need your impressions.” She told Tony.

“You have a quiet reserve. I don’t know, you have an old soul.” Tony replied.

I held out the folder to Natasha. “I think you’re more terrifying than we know.”

Natasha gave us both small smiles- to seem demure and more gentle than the spider beneath the skin. “I meant your fingerprints.” She corrected.

“Right.” Tony took off his glove.

I put my thumb into the ink, pressing it down on the paperwork. Tony followed.

That’s it.

I...it was on me now.

I was... _fuck._

I was CEO of Stark Industries.

_What the fuck_

_This wasn’t supposed to be how it went._

_FUCK!_

“So, how are we doing?” Pepper asked us.

“Great.” Tony and I answered.

“Just wrapping up here.” He smirked at me. “Hey. You’re the boss.”

_FUH-_

“Will that be all, Mr Stark?” Natasha asked.

“No.” Tony replied because _damn Natasha that was him and Pepper’s thing._

“Ms Stark?” Natasha asked me.

“Yes.” I replied- doing my best not to be snippy or short. This wasn’t on her. This wasn’t on Tony. She was only analysing him for the Avengers Initiative. Which was going to be messed up because he was only making rash choices because he thought he was dying. Because he wasn’t _letting me help._ “Yes, that will be all, Ms Rushman. Thank you very much.”

Natasha gave me a small smile, walking away.

Nikki walked up to our little meet-and-greet. She took one look at my expression, then stepped closer.

“I want one.” Tony told Pepper.

“No.” Pepper informed him. Tony accepted it.

“You, me, fight?” Nikki requested. I raised my eyebrow at her. “What. You scared?”

_Author-dammit she knows me buttons._ “First to tap out?” I agreed.

“Obviously.” Nikki snorted.

“Deal.” I pointed over at the nearby bench. “Just put all your weapons there.”

Nikki walked over to the table. She pulled out knives from her pockets and a gun from her side.

Tony looked impressed. Pepper seemed to be caught somewhere between confusion and resigned acceptance.

I wasn’t. “ _All_ of them.”

Nikki bristled. She took her shoes off, followed by her add on jewelry and our matching necklace.

I added my own to it. If Nikki thought it was a weapon, it probably was. “ _All of it.”_

Nikki groaned. I watched in joy as Tony and Pepper’s jaws dropped. Nikki pulled out: a knife, throwing star, and pin from her hair.

“That it?” I asked, skeptical.

Nikki looked defeated as she reached into her shirt. She pulled off her strapless bra. As she put it on the table, I could see the making of a knife along the seam.

“Great!” I cheered. “Go put on an athletic bra, and we’ll get started.”

“What, you’re not putting any away?” Nikki asked, annoyed.

“I’ll do that while you’re putting on the athletic bra.” I motioned to my Bag.

“That’s all you got?” Nikki scoffed at me.

“My hands have been considered lethal weapons for ages. I can’t cut them off.” I reasoned. Nikki opened her mouth. “They don’t grow back. My healing powers are great, but I’m not willing to push it that far.”

My sister hummed. “...allowed.” She walked off.

While she was gone I dropped the Bag beside her belongings.

“She likes pointy stuff.” Tony commented.

I shrugged. “Actually I’m impressed. I didn’t know about the throwing star.”

“So you knew about the rest, then?” Pepper pointed out.

“Yeah.” I climbed into the ring. Once inside I grabbed some of the fist tape. Wouldn’t do to break my knuckles. “She’s living in our house. Paranoia really kicks in when your roommate wears knives.”

Tony glanced at the Bag, along with the pile of sharp things. “She lives in our house now?”

“I’m scared to get her a hotel room.” I revealed. “Just- anything she does goes on my bill and I don’t want that on my conscience.”

_I just know she’ll do a remake of the movie Hostel and be only more gorey in the torture porn._

_...how the fuck are we related?!_

“And you let her sleep here?” Pepper added.

“I’m a superhero who now owns a company that used to make weapons. Think I can take her.” I remarked. “Oh! I have the bo staff in my back pocket. Almost forgot about that!” I pulled out the shrunken staff. My sister would’ve made a dick joke about it. I tossed it onto the Bag. “HEY NIKKI HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE-”

“I’M BACK GEEZ!” Nikki ran back into the gym, tying her blonde hair away into a ponytail. She was wearing the same thing as before- a dark red crop top with long sleeves, a gray skirt, and black boots.

I was comfortable enough in a white tank top with red on the shoulder, black leggings with a thin red line running along the thigh, and black sneakers.

I spread my arms out wide. “Ready to come to church?”

Nikki snorted. She climbed into the ring, sliding in with the same grace as Natasha. She even grabbed the fist tape while she was at it. “Ready to be hit so hard you see someone else’s god?”

“Oh that was good.”

“Thank you- I’ve been waiting to use it.”

She met me in the ring.

“First tapout?” Nikki reminded me.

I nodded. “Nothing in the eye or genitals.”

Nikki nodded. “Hair is also a no. I just got this done the way I liked it.”

“Deal.” I held out my arm.

Nikki clasped it with her own.

We shook once.

I gripped tighter, throwing her down to the ground.

Nikki huffed. “Wow.” She rolled away from me. She pushed herself to her feet- dodging a kick that I was sending towards her back. “Not even a gentlemen’s pause?”

“I’m not a gentleman.” I made for a punch toward her stomach. Nikki blocked it, so I punched her hip. Nikki kicked my shin.

This kind of fighting went on for a few minutes- almost by in a blur. Punches toward the shins or arms or stomach. Blocking said hits, or rolling away to avoid them. Some highlights: Nikki made a kick at my head, and I was able to punch her in the lower back.

Twenty minutes of that.

Nikki ended up tapping out first. I was on her back, holding her arms down while my legs were holding down her hips. Nikki was trying to pull at my head without getting at my hair. If she got my hair, automatic fail.

She tapped out.

I grinned, flopping down on the mat.

Nikki did so beside me. “You good?”

“Yeah.” I sat up, sighing. “You?”

“Been great. Can I get my knives back now?”

“Yeah...hey when did they leave?”

“Just before the time I bit your arm.”

“Aw. Cool.”

Nikki sighed. “You still fucked up about the CEO thing?”

I kept quieting, pretending to focus on getting my breathing to rights.

“Change freaks you out. Gets you all, tense and shit. I should know- I was probably the biggest fucking change for you.” Nikki remarked. I tried to tune her out but...she knew my tells. “You were always better after a fight.”

_...this is why we’re related._

“Just like I’m better after sex.” Nikki grinned. She hopped up to her feet, climbing out of the ring. “Which reminds me. See ya later!”

“I hate you!” I groaned, my head thunking back on the ground.

_Thank you._

_ ==NM2== _

_ “Everyday...just a little bit closer.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy belated birthday Tony Stark! Also: I suck at fight scenes, apparently.


	6. Chapter 05

“So I should let you know-”

“Don’t wanna know.”

“But I-”

“Will it actively effect today?” I asked her.

Nikki hummed. “No.”

“Is he going to show up later, pregnant with your child?”

“Fuck no, I hope not.”

“Then I don’t care.” I replied.

Nikki pouted. “You never want to hear about my day.” She complained.

The look I gave her would send Steve Rogers back into the ice. “Your day involves: sex, death, or both.” I stated. “So today. Your objective is clear. Don’t be a shit.”

The woman rolled her eyes. Still, even with her annoyance she obeyed. Her posture slid into one a bodyguard would take when at work. She had asked for a super suit- which I denied but was also designing because come _ on _ of course I was making her a suit- without it she decided to wear a short pink cocktail dress with black lace overlay. 

She and Pepper had worked together on my clothes. Bright pink pants, a black peplum shirt with a white lapel collar, and a tight dark blue jacket bound with a bright pink belt. Nikki had sworn it was fashionable. Pepper also approved (which I accepted because Nikki probably wanted me in a matching dress to her’s).

We had long since left the car- with appropriate waves to the crowd while also smiling. On the walk inside was when that conversation had gone on.

Which brings us to the inside of this...place.

“Hey kid.” Tony walked up to my side.

“Parental unit.” I greeted, blithely.

“You ready for this?”

_ ‘No absolutely not and I hate you.’  _ “Sure.”

Tony patted me on the back. It made me wish I had a drink in my hands so I could pour it over his head. “You know, it’s Europe. Whatever happens the next 20 minutes, just go with it.” Tony assured me.

“That doesn’t comfort me. That doesn’t comfort me at all.” I replied. Nikki snickered.

“Ms Stark?” Natasha walked up to me. She was wearing a nice red dress. Given Tony and I’s suits, it was hard to tell who properly owned that color. I suppose that was part of the point. Win Tony over to her, so she could be trusted enough for Tony to reveal aspects of his personality. Or perhaps to see if I would side with her over my father.

So many possible games at play it was hard to pinpoint the exact one that was leaving me pissed off.

I kept a calm expression. “Yes. Hello.”

“Hey.” Tony greeted, giving Natasha a wide smile.

She ignored him. “Hello. How was your flight?” Natasha asked me.

“Good.” I answered.

“It was excellent. Boy, it’s nice to see you.” Tony replied.

Pepper held his arm, pulling him a step back. A server walked up with a tray of alcohol. Tony and Pepper took a drink. I declined the offered water.

“We have one photographer from the ACM, if you don’t mind. Okay?” Natasha asked. She plucked away the drinks, putting them back on the serving tray.

“When did this happen?” Pepper asked Tony, meaning Natalie.

I got in place for the photo, putting on  _ ‘the smile mom wants so this can finally end’  _ smile. Nikki behind me stayed vigil, scanning the crowd. Probably for a target. Not that she would find one here, not with so much press. I’d let her find a back alley in a bar later. Once all the drama cooled the fuck down.

“What? You made me do it.” Tony replied to Pepper. He too got in position for the 

“I made you do what?” Pepper asked.

“You quit. Somebody had to work for Beck.” Tony excused. “Smile. Look, right there.”

“Please go along so I can stop smiling.” I requested, working to unclench my teeth.

Pepper got into position.

“Stop acting constipated. Don’t flare your nostrils.” Tony corrected, smiling for the camera.

“You are so predictable.” Pepper remarked.

“That’s the amazing thing.” Tony replied to her.

The camera went away. My smile dropped.

“Right this way.” Natasha requested. I moved to follow her, feeling Nikki at my back.

I walked in silence behind her. My mind rushing about too much to think about proper conversation topics.

“I’m liking the dress.” Nikki remarked.

“Why, thank you very much.” Natasha replied.

“Nikki. Keep professional.” I reminded her. Nikki shrugged, poorly hiding a grin. “Ms Rushman, what’s on the docket?”

“You have a nine thirty dinner.” Natasha informed me.

“Good. I’ll be there. Dad will show up promptly at eleven.”

“Absolutely.” Natasha smiled.

“Is this us?” Tony asked, pointing at a table.

“It can be.” Natasha told him.

“Great. Make it us.” Tony instructed. Natasha gave myself a glance. I opened my mouth. “You like window seats.” I closed my mouth.

“Okay.” Natasha agreed, at seeing my silent consent.

“Mr Musk. How are you?” Pepper asked, walking over to a man sitting nearby our new table.

“Hi, Ms Potts.” He stood up. He shook Pepper’s hand, then moved towards me at seeing me. Nikki took a small step closer. “Becky Stark. Congratulations on the promotion.”

I smiled politely. “Thank you very much.” With that done, I moved towards the table. Nikki took the seat next to me. Tony went to talk with Mr Musk. “You know, most bodyguards stand behind their boss to watch properly.”

“Yeah.” She leaned in, lowering her voice to a whisper.  _ “But you know everyone in here who could want to kill you.” _ She leaned back, picking up the fork to twirl it between her fingers. “You could toss them out the window if they tried. Can I get a drink?”

“Are you legal?”

“Are you?”

“In America, no.” Nikki beamed. “But this is Monaco. They’re limit’s 18.” She stood up. “Come on! I want a drink.”

“Why didn’t you get yourself one before?” I asked. Rising from my seat, I followed her.

“Cause I wanted us both to get drinks.” Nikki excused. She wrapped her arm around mine, making sure we followed after Tony and Pepper. She held out her hand. “Bartend. Two margaritas: one on the rocks, one with salt.”

“ID?” The bartender prompted Nikki.

She pulled one out from the chest of her dress, showing it to the bartend. A quick glance got a nod from him.

“Not me?” I asked her.

She gave me a flat stare. I kept my mouth shut.

“Whoa hey don’t I need to approve any drinking?” Tony asked.

“In the states. This is Monaco- I’m legal here.” I informed him. The bartender put down a margarita in front of me. I accepted the drink. Nikki and I toasted, taking our first sips. “Ahhh...that’s actually better.”

Nikki grinned. She tipped her drink to Tony.

“You want a massage?” Tony asked Pepper.

“Oh, God. No. I don’t want a massage.” Pepper replied.

I rolled my eyes, pointedly putting my back to Tony and Pepper. Nikki gave me a stupid expression- something you would see on someone much drunker than us. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing.

“I’ll have Natalie make an-”

“I don’t want Natalie to do-”

“Don’t want you tense. By the way, I didn’t mean to spring this on you.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Green is not your best color.”

“Oooh.” I sighed, sipping again on my drink. “Did you hear that, Nikki?”

“Hmm. He was so close.” Nikki sipped on her own drink. “Shame. I was rooting for him.”

“Anthony. Rebecca.” I tensed up. “Is that you?”

Tony sighed behind me, while I slowly turned. “My least favorite person on Earth.” For the oddest reason, I relaxed at seeing Justin Hammer.

Our competition- the equivalent of a villain who would go  _ “McDonalds! McDonalds! _ ” even as an adult- walked up. “Hey, pal.” He greeted. He mimed a fake punch towards me. “And you! You little tyke!”

The only way my expression could be any flater was if the Hulk jumped on it.

“Justin Hammer.” Tony greeted, dryly.

“How you doing? You’re not the only rich people here with a fancy car.” Justin reminded, as though to explain away our obvious expressions to Justin’s presence here. “You know Christine Everhart from Vanity Fair. You guys know each other?”

Said reporter walked up. I couldn’t stop myself from grinning so I hid it behind my drink.

“Hi. Yes.”

Pepper was smiling, giving Tony a knowing look. “Yes.”

Tony “Yes, roughly.” Tony replied.

Nikki snorted into her drink. I glared at her- damn her for putting that dirty joke in my mind.

“We do.”

“She rings a bell.” I added.

“BTW, big story. The new CEO of Stark Industries.” Justin waved his hand at me.

“I know, I know.” Christine replied.

“Congratulations.” Justin told me.

“Wow. Such high praise.” I acknowledged.

“My editor will kill me if I don’t grab a quote for our Powerful Women issue.” Christine told me.

“Huh.” I hummed. Nikki snickered behind me. 

“Can I?” Christine asked.

“Why not.” I picked up my drink.

“She’s actually doing a big spread on me for Vanity Fair. I thought I’d throw her a bone, you know.” Justin explained, as though boasting that he was getting a bigger article which made him the better person. “Right?”

“Right. Well, she did quite a spread on Tony last year.” Pepper commented.

Nikki and I both snorted into our drinks that time.

“And she wrote a story as well.” Tony threw in.

Which only made the snorting worse. It grew to full on snickers.

“It was very impressive.”

“That was good.”

“It was very well done.”

“Thank you.” Christine accepted the praise at face value, ignoring any of the implications of the remarks.

“I’m gonna go wash.” Pepper stated, walking off.

Christine pulled out the recording device. She held it out towards me. My eyes focused on it for a moment, then back up to the reporter.

“Don’t leave me.” Tony pleaded.

“Hey, buddy. How you doing?” Justin greeted, taking up the space between Tony and myself.

“I’m all right. Me and the kid. We’re both good.” Tony assured.

“Looking gorgeous.” Justin praised him. Then he nodded his head at me. “Of course, clearly Rebecca there is stealing the show.”

I silently sipped at my drink.

“Please, this is tough.” Tony replied.

“Can I ask you...Is this the first time-” Christine began- only to be cut off my multiple things at once.

First a camera man, coming to take a picture of the three of us.

Second, Nikki and I taking a drink at the exact same time thus preventing us from unwanted conversation.

Third, Justin Hammer. That’s it. Just Justin Hammer.

“Fromage.” Justin threw his arm around Tony, then moved to throw the other one around my arm. I pulled away from it. “Say _ ‘Brie _ ’.”

Nikki switched us around, standing in my place while the picture was being taken. Better yet, she was holding up her drink for the camera. She would probably want it framed, if it ever saw the light of day.

“-that you guys have seen each other?” Christine tried again.

“God, that’s so awful.” Tony complained.

“Agreed.” I sighed.

“Listen, is it the first time you three have seen each other since the Senate?” Christine asked.

“Yes.” I answered plainly.

“Since he got his contract revoked-” Tony asked.

“Actually, it’s on hold.” Justin interrupted.

“-when you were attempting to-” Tony was continuing. He gave Justin a look for the interruption. “That’s not what I heard. What’s the difference between  _ ‘hold’  _ and  _ ‘cancelled’ _ ? The truth?”

“Yes, what is it?” Christine asked, now turning to Justin.

“No. The truth is.” Justin glanced down at the recording device in her hand. “Why don’t we put that away? The truth is, I’m actually hoping to present something at your Expo.”

Now we were beginning the walk back to a table. Most likely Justin’s, or maybe just a random table that Tony was using to get us out of this mess.

“Well, if you invent something that works, I’ll make sure I get you a slot.” Tony remarked.

_ ‘If I had any say in that, I’d tell him to fuck off. However I have no say because if we tell him no then where the fuck will Whiplash begin his attack? It needs to be somewhere controlled- of which Stark Expo is my best chance of my doing that.’ _

“Ms Stark, Mr Stark, Ms Stevens?” Natasha walked up to us.

“Yes?” I replied.

“Your corner table is ready.” Natasha informed me.

“You’re a lifesaver.” I moved to follow her. Nikki behind me.

“I actually have a slot this year. Yes, I do.” Justin was telling...I don’t even know who was really listening.

“Hammer needs a slot, Christine.” Tony told Christine.

“We kid, yeah. We kid. We’re kidders.” Justin was laughing.

Soon we got to the table. Tony left- also for the bathroom. Nikki and I took our seats.

She leaned in, so Natasha couldn’t hear. Hopefully. Maybe. “You good, kid?” She asked me.

I took a big gulp of the margarita, making sure to get the extra salt. “Haven’t decided.”

“You got fucked up when he said your name.”

“He didn’t.” I heard myself replying.

“I’m pretty sure it was-” Nikki began.

“No, my name is Becky. He said the long one.” I cut her off. Nikki paused. “I don’t- it was that bastard that kept saying the long one. And he- you know.”

“Yeah...I know.” Nikki sat back in her seat. She tapped my shoulder, holding it for a beat before letting go. “You need a minute?”

“Maybe.” Thank Author I was drinking. Emotions were so fucking awful without alcohol. “Go to the bathroom, see if a guy wants his dick sucked.”

Nikki grinned. “I love your ideas.”

“It’s because you’re just as awful.” I told her, as Nikki got up from her seat to walk away.

Once she was gone, I slouched in my seat.

Natasha came up. My moment of calm vanished in a blink. “Ms Stark, are you alright?”

“Depends.” I answered, having more of my drink. 

“On?” Natasha asked. She walked closer to my side.

_ ‘Are you investigating me too? _

_ What will your report of me say? _

_ Will you tell the truth, or lie? _

_ Will Tony actually come to me for help, or will he just keep on going as if I don’t already know? _

_ Can I stop being the depressing drunk? Seriously, being a chatty drunk is more fun. Or at least Nikki makes it look more fun.’ _

“On if you can get me another one.” I decided to say, holding up the margarita I had almost finished.

 

==NM2==

 

In the bathroom, Tony was looking at his latest results.

They weren’t good.

Tony supposed they were good, in their own way. Just another day closer to death- of being without the constant pain in his chest as the poison spread through his blood. Another day closer to when he’d stop being such a lousy dad to Becky. Or a lousy...whatever to Pepper. He didn’t want to put a label on this thing just yet, in case he...you know.

But he had so little time left...so many other things he could do...a bucket list with a lot of things he wouldn’t be able to do before dying.

“Got any other bad ideas?” Tony asked his reflection.

“I’ve got one.”

Tony turned around. Nikki Stevens was standing there. “This is the men’s room.” He heard himself saying.

“I know.” Nikki smacked her lips, wiping away something on her chin. “But I’ve got an idea. Seriously. My ideas are the bomb.” She took a step forward. “You ever wanted to drive one of the cars?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a rush job, but I still think it got the point across. Besides it was fun to write it.


	7. Chapter 06

As I sipped on another margarita, Nikki plopped down beside me. She was panting, a giddy smile on her face.

I handed her a napkin. 

Nikki took it. She wiped her mouth then chin. “Cool.” She tossed it onto the table. My dream was that it would be burned. “So. You’re gonna love this. When I was done I saw Tony-”

“Stop. Stop right there. Tell me you didn’t-” I gagged. Thankfully for us both, Pepper had gone to get herself a drink. If she had heard this, I would kill Nikki myself.

Nikki paused, then snorted. “No I didn’t suck off Tony-”

“ _ I said stop.” _

“-just a rando. But I ran  _ into  _ Tony. He was doing that talking to himself thing so I said it would be-  _ will you get that look off your face. _ ”

“Can’t. Still so very disgusted.” I mined gagging. “Gross. Mental imagery. Make it  _ stop.” _

She whacked my head. She gripped my neck, then the drink. She lifted it to my mouth then poured it in my mouth. She wouldn’t let go until I drank a few gulps worth.

“Better?” Nikki asked.

“...yes.”

“Good. Then you can enjoy the fact that your half of the family is a fuck-up.” Nikki pointed towards a camera, which was showing Tony in the racing outfit.

I sighed. “You’re a fuck up too.”

“Which makes you the white sheep.” Nikki patted me on the shoulder. “I hate you for it. Be a disappointment.”

“Gladly. Miss Rushman!” I called out.

_ “Well, what’s the use of having and owning a race car if you don’t drive it?” _

Natasha came up to the table. Pepper behind her. They were both glancing over at the TV screen.

“Yes, Ms Stark?” Natasha asked.

“What do you know about this?” Pepper asked us both.

“This is the first that I have known of it.” Natasha answered Pepper.

“Becky. Did you?” Pepper asked.

I pointed at Nikki. Nikki held up her hands. “All I said was that it would be a good idea!”

“She’s an idiot!” I excused. “But none of us smart people knew. Just the idiot.”

Nikki grinned with all the confidence of someone who thought they would live to the end of a horror movie.

“This, this cannot happen.” Pepper stated.

“Without a doubt.” I agreed, more from the point of Whiplash coming soon than any concern that Tony would get hurt. “Miss Rushman. Go find Happy. We need Happy.”

Natasha nodded. “Right away.” She ran off to grab him.

Nikki pulled me up to my feet. She pushed me towards the restrooms. We hid in the hallway there. Pepper was too absorbed in the TV broadcast to make note.

“So. Remind me again about the plan for this?” Nikki asked.

I huffed. Annoyed at her for needing to have this explained for the millionth time (and secretly thankful because I was starting to feel Emotions and would really like to not be feeling again) so I rattled it off. “I put on my suit, then I take his suit to him. We both stop Whiplash.”

“Right, right. When do I get involved?”

“You don’t have a suit.”

“I have powers though.”

“Yeah, but no suit for you.”

Nikki gave me a look. “When am I getting a suit?”

_ Dammit I am weak.  _ “The parts are in production- it’ll be ready three days after we get back.”

Nikki gave her a fist bump. “Cool.”

“Now I gotta go.” I walked back towards the table.

Natasha walked in with Happy at that exact moment.

Teleporting to them, I held out my palm. “Briefcase..”

“Why?” Happy asked.

“I’m going to take it to Tony.” I explained. “Hand it over.

“No, we’re both going down there.” Happy argued. He held the briefcase tighter to his chest.

“I can teleport- this is a great time for it.” I pointed out. “So hand it over.”

“No. I’m head of your personal security-”

“You are  _ not _ pulling that card on me right now-”

“Your dad wouldn’t want you-”

“Dad wouldn’t want me drinking alcohol, but I’ve finished two margharitas in the time it took for him to decide to be Speed Racer.” I countered. “Briefcase.”

“No. We’re both going.” Happy insisted. He started moving out of the building.

I groaned out. My hands went to my hair, squeezing it.

Nikki was laughing behind me- I just knew it!

 

==NM2==

 

Happy rushed us into the car. 

“The key!” I yelled, as I climbed into the backseat.

“No time!” Happy yelled back, driving off. 

I growled in annoyance. As he drove, I put my Bag on the seat beside me. As I began taking off the outfit, Happy made a hard turn.

“Hang on!” Happy warned.

Bracing myself with my legs, I continued putting on the top half of the suit. I was able to slip in as Happy drove through the barricade. It was easier to dress up in the suit without bothersome outside things.

“Changed!” I reached forward in the car. “Key!”

“It’s in my pocket.” Happy yelled.

“Then hold still!” I yelled.

As Happy swerved to avoid the racers, I leaned down to his pocket. It was difficult to maneuver the key out, but I managed it.

I unlocked the case- preparing to teleport out when Happy crashed the car into Whiplash.

Tony hopped down from the side of the car. “Are you okay?” He yelled at us.

“Yeah.” Happy answered.

Tony stopped at Happy’s window, glaring. “Were you heading from me or him?”

“I was trying to scare him.” Happy excused.

“‘Cause I can’t tell!” Tony shouted.

Pushing the car door open, I glared at him. “Pepper is going to murder you.” Was my first greeting. “Possibly as slow as she can manage.”

“Better security.” Tony scolded Happy still.

“Take the football you bastard minded simpleton-”

“I was attacked.” Tony ranted at us both now. He refused to take the football from me. “We need better security.”

“Get in the car.” Happy ordered.

“No!” I snapped. “I’m staying here-”

“You’re CEO.” Tony argued. “Better security measures.”

“I am the best security measure I am ever going to get!” I argued. Happy made a noise. “No offense, Happy.”

“None taken.” Happy replied.

“God, it’s embarrassing.” Tony huffed. He moved to the other side of the car, opening the door. “First vacation in two years.”

Whiplash moved fast, slashing down on the open door. It cut the door in half- the handle half still in Tony’s hand.

“Really?” I complained.

Happy moved the car back. I jumped out as he ran into Whiplash again. “I got him!” Happy cheered.

“Hit him again. Hit him again!” Tony instructed. “Football.”

I teleported to his side, pushing the case into his arms. He dropped the broken door.

“I got him.” Happy cheered again, moving the car once more.

Tony moved to open it. I’d unlocked it so it should be easy. Of course right when I thought that Happy crashed too hard into the fence and Whiplash, causing the airbag to go off.

_ Fuck me, I guess. _

Whiplash brought the whip down on the car. I pulled out the bo staff, whacking at the whip. Whiplashed tried aiming it towards me, so I spun away. He cackled.

Tony yelled out at Whiplash. As Tony donned the armor, I leapt over the car. With a kick it was sent flying to the side. Whiplash fell on his knees for only a second. To be honest I think most of this fight was done of sheer willpower on his account. He rushed at me, only to get punched in the face by Iron Man.

I rushed at Whiplash, using the bo staff to whack at his shoulder. He groaned out, throwing another whip at me. Iron Man fired a repulsor blast, only to be met with a whip. It blasted us both back. 

Kipping onto my feet I slid toward Whiplash, hitting the back of his legs. He tried to bring down his elbow on me, so I used the staff on his back. He lashed out another whip at Iron Man, then whirled it back to myself. It sent me flying towards the fence.

Iron Man fired more repulsor blasts. Multiples of them straight at Whiplash’s face. The man fought on with the whips, blocking out any shot.

Whiplash manages to fire one more time. Iron Man takes hold of the whip, squeezing it tight. Whiplash sent the other one my way- this one wrapping around my throat. I yelled out, regretting it fast by the pain in my throat.

He began using the whips to toss us around the road. Occasionally Iron Man and I collided, dropping on the floor like limp marinettes. I would hit burnt bits of car. It was getting in my hair- he had to be stopped.

The whips started electrocuting us then.  _ Whoopie. _

I grabbed a hold of my whip, ignoring the pain in my hands. This was why gloves were on the table for the next suit upgrade.

Iron Man also grabbed his whip.

Whiplash sent larger charges down the whip. I gasped out, falling down on my knee. Iron Man pulled himself forward. In a quick movement he pushed Whiplash to the ground then yanked out his Arc Reactor.

The whip around my throat died out. I tossed it away, storming up to Whiplash. Pushing him up, I quickly tied him up with his own whips.

The man was bleeding heavily from his mouth, and parts of his face. A quick spit check into my palm showed I was bleeding there too.

The police showed up then. They lifted up Vanko, dragging him off. The man cackled at us, spitting blood our way. “You- You lose. You lose Starks.” He cackled.

I spit down at the ground, just to get the blood out of my mouth. Unpleasant memories, you know?

 

==NM2==

 

Afterwards, Nikki was sitting with me outside the French prison where they had taken Vanko.

She watched me write in a notebook. The pages were littered with designs and equations for my suit, along with her’s. 

She sat beside me, toying a knife in her fingers. “So...why aren’t we allowed inside?”

I dropped a paper on her head.

Nikki read out loud the message scrawled there. “‘ _ Going inside means leaving you alone. Fuck that.’ _ True, true. I think it’s just a lazy excuse-” Another paper on her head. “ _ ‘He doesn’t want me inside’. _ Why the hell hasn’t your throat healed yet?”

I shrugged.

“I hate it when you can’t snark.” Nikki pouted. “What’s the point of being an asshole if you can’t fail at scolding me?”

My eyes rolled. The outside injuries from the electrified whip had healed. My throat was taking longer than anyone liked. JARVIS suggested I drink some honey tea for my throat. That required asking Nikki to go get it for me, a bad decision all around. Last time I asked her to get me something to drink, she’d poisoned it.

_ (She was six at the time...it was a rough few months after her parents died. Also she sucked- I’d asked for water and she brought me a glass of dish detergent). _

“Would it help if I slit your throat?” Nikki asked, delighted.

I shook my head. Not even shocked, or disgusted. That kind of comment was completely expected.

Nikki pouted. “I’m bored.”

That made me snort- which sent some pain up my head.

“Wow. I know I was fun when you actually get hurt laughing.” Nikki laughed to herself. I punched her arm. Nikki laughed at that.

Someone cleared their throat.

Nikki jumped back in surprise. I merely smiled at Tony, having seen him approaching ages ago. I waved.

Tony hummed. “Her voice still not working?”

“It’s been the happiest three hours of my life-” I elbowed her. Nikki groaned, louder than necessary.  _ Show-off _ . 

I signed to Nikki.  _ :Ask him about what happened inside.: _

Nikki shrugged. “How’d it go inside, asks Ariel, the Little Smartass.”

“You know sign language?” Tony asked.

I nodded, making a motion for Tony to go on.

He explained everything that happened inside- except for the obvious bit where Vanko knew about Tony’s palladium poisoning. Have I mentioned how annoyed I was that Tony refused to talk to me about it?

I signed again to Nikki.

“She says that’s not good.” Nikki replied. “But from what I heard, she’s got more credit than you on that- okay, okay, don’t hit me again!”

Tony grinned, that half smirk he did when he had a sad thought but refused to show it. He always forgot to cover it in his eyes.

I signed at her.  _ :Quit being an idiot and I won’t have to!: _

Nikki scoffed. “You know, you could go back to not being sarcastic.” I gave her a look. “Yeah...I know it was a stupid suggestion. Just try not to knock my head off when you do it.”

I nodded. After waiting a second, I slapped her upside the head. Nikki grunted, barely able to hold onto the car.

“You’re mean.” Nikki whined.

To that, I merely turned up my nose.

All the while, Tony watched us with that same expression on his face. “Can you still drink?”

“Yep.” Nikki cheered. “I was gonna go to a bar-” I got her attention, signing to her again. “But cause of her throat, she can’t drink anything. At least not for...she says two hours.”

“Two hours? Her throat was electrocuted.”

“Super healing, my dude.” Nikki excused. “It’s weird.”

I had to concede that point. It  _ was _ super weird. That pun was so great I quickly signed _ :You could say it’s  _ super  _ weird: _ to Nikki.

She pushed me off the car. “Yeah no more signing for you. No voice, and you still make stupid puns.”

Now I was laughing. It didn't hurt as much as the snorting did before. Guess I was healing up faster and faster.

_ Pity Tony was dying faster and faster... _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I just finished watching Far From Home...can someone please explain to me the logic of the post credit scenes!? WTF!


	8. Chapter 07

Since things were settled as far as they could be settled, we were going home.

Nikki wanted to ride in an airplane, so now teleporting for us. And I wasn’t sure if that far a distance was good with my throat still fucked up. Well it had mostly healed, my voice just sounded raspy like from a bad cold.

The two of us were sitting with Pepper. Nikki had wanted to go over suit designs with me- including colors. Somehow I had become Edna Moda to her Mr Incredible, still I don’t get a thank you? Nikki had been signing the entire time, myself as well, so Pepper probably had no idea what we were talking about.

Then came the topic of Natasha. She was in the cockpit with Happy, making sure none of us died. Which, ya know, was a general bad thing.

Nikki and I had been going to the kitchen repeatedly during the flight to make me tea. I included myself because her first cup had been purposefully poisoned, the second had been purely accidental.

She was still of the belief that a ‘full death’ would reset the body- including injury.

Well fuck her.

I was sipping at some lavender tea with honey, as Senator Stern boasted.

_ “It’s just unbelievable. It proves that the genie is out of the bottle and this man has no idea what he’s doing. He thinks of the Iron Man weapon as a toy.” _

Nikki snorted. She signed at me.  _ :Hey. Hey. He’s not ballsy enough to talk shit about you.: _

I nodded slowly.  _ :Point: _

_ “I was at a hearing where Mr Stark, in fact, was adamant that these suits can’t exist anywhere else, don’t exist anywhere else, never will exist anywhere else, at least for five to ten years, and here we are in Monaco realizing,  _ ‘These suits exist now.’ _ ” _

“Mute.” Tony instructed. He walked into the space, holding up a food tray. Both myself and Nikki had watched him make that monstrosity as we kept going back for tea. It was worse than you can imagine. I pitied the person who had to clean it up- maybe Nikki, for the poisoning thing.  _ Hold up, did he have two of those?  _ “He should be giving me a medal. That’s the truth. Becks too, I mean the kid lost her voice.”

He dropped the second tray in front of me. Yeah...no.

“It’s not permanent.” I reminded him, my voice still raspy but not terrible.  _ Good tea, my dudes. _

“Yeah but you still lost it.” Tony countered.

Nikki snorted as I just had another sip of tea. She stared at the tray, smugness coming out from her purple eyes.

“What is that?” Pepper asked.

“This is your in-flight meal.” Tony lifted off the lids, showing off the...thing.

How was this possible?  _ How?! _ It was burnt _ and _ runny. That’s not a thing. That’s a cartoon thing- even then it pushes the boundaries of science. This was an abomination.

“Did you just make that?” Pepper asked.

“Yeah. Where do you think I’ve been for three hours?” Tony asked, sitting down across from Pepper.

“Can I set this on fire?” I asked.

Nikki snickered. “I think it already was.”

I hummed in acknowledgement.

“Tony, what are you not telling me?” Pepper asked.

Went made me furious cause he wasn’t telling me anything either. Even though I was the only other person who was there to help him make the thing killing him, so I don’t appreciate this whole ‘ignoring’ thing that he’s doing.

Nikki though showed no rage. With her, you got exactly whatever was in her head. If she was mad at Tony she’d be showing it. Or maybe she’d learn to hide it-  _ hahaha _ nevermind that’s a stupid idea. Nikki, hide her feelings? Hilarious.

“I don’t want to go home. At all.” Tony explained instead of the truth. “Let’s cancel my birthday party and- We’re in Europe. Let’s go to Venice, Cipriani. Remember?”

“Oh, yes.” Pepper hummed.

“It’s a great place to- be healthy.” Tony excused. “Becks, I don’t know if you remember-”

“I don’t.”

“-well you’ll love it. It’s great. They’ve got- uh- that pasta you like.” Tony excused.

I gave him a look, telling him that in no way did I believe him.

“I don’t think this is the right time. We’re in kind of a mess.” Pepper explained.

“Yeah, but maybe that’s why it’s the best time. ‘Cause then we can-” Tony tried to convince her.

“As CEO of Stark Industries-” I had another sip of tea, my throat aching again. The tea was almost out so I would have to go make more. “-I would like to be returned to the office. I need to attend those events, not go off being the college party girl everyone assumes I am.”

Nikki laughed. “You? You couldn’t party if you tried.”

“Yeah?! I could party- no. No. I’m not getting into this argument with you.” I shook my head.

“As CEO, you are entitled to a leave.” Tony told me.

“Were you ever?” I asked him. “Without Pepper reminding you of the hundreds of things you still had to finish?”

Tony winced. “Yes. Loads of times.”

“Did you ever actually _ not  _ to do anything on those leaves?” I added. “Or ever during a time when everything about your company is getting these comments?”

“Just a ride.” Tony offered instead. “Well, I’m just saying, to recharge our batteries and figure it all out.”

“Not everybody runs on batteries Tony.” Pepper informed, in her gentle way that told Tony to drop it.

The man did so. He slumped in his seat, looking out of the airplane window.

I picked up my plate and cup. With Nikki following me, we went to the kitchen. It was indeed a mess.

“You’re gonna want to clean that, aren’t you?” Nikki asked, grinning.

I pushed the cup into her hands.  _ :Don’t poison it, this time.:  _ I warned.

Nikki scoffed. “Come on- you like it. It keeps you on your toes.”

_ :Which reminds me. Catch!: _

“Why-” Nikki recieved a face full of failed omelet. “I hate you.” She murmured, as the plate fell to the floor.

 

==NM2==

 

Nikki held out a plate of snacks. She had been watching the news, a calculating look in her eyes.

Leaning over the couch, I grabbed up a cracker, taking a quick bite. With all the hullabaloo going about there hadn’t been time to have a proper meal. Even then I was too hyped up to sit down. Right now I was pacing around the living room as I spoke on the phone to multiple people.

She glanced at Natasha before she signed at me.  _ :It’s really cool to see you smack talk somebody that isn’t me.: _

_ :Wait your turn.: _ I warned her. “What- no that’s not right.” I spoke into the phone. “We are very much still the same StarkIndustries. We swore off making and selling weapons, and we have kept that promise. Unless you happened on evidence- concrete evidence- that proves otherwise, what you’re saying is slander.”

_ :Like I said- cool.: _

Pepper was sitting on the couch. She was speaking to...I don’t even remember. Our PR guy? Somebody.

Natasha was sitting beside her, also speaking on the phone. “Yes, of course.” She turned to me. “The AP wants a quote.”

Covering up the speaker on my phone, I turned to her. “Email it to them.”

The doors opened. Rhodey walked in. “Where is he?” He asked.

“He doesn’t want to be disturbed.” Natasha answered.

“He’s downstairs.” Pepper and I answered.

_ “But what happened in Monaco?” _ The woman over the phone asked me.

“We were-”

_ “But his continuing erratic behaviour may lead many people to ask themselves, ‘Can this man still protect us?’” _ The newswoman asked.  _ “Can _ you _ protect us?” _

“I can- and I will- and I did. We both did.” I countered. My hand waved to Nikki. I pointed downstairs. She nodded, following after Rhodey. “We were attacked by an outside source. He was taken down. Monaco proved that.”

 

==NM2==

 

Nikki walked into the lab. She saw the multiple papers projected into the air. She scanned them over, taking a place beside Tony to watch it. She hopped into the car, sliding down until it looked like she was driving it.

“Tony, you gotta get upstairs and get on top of this situation right now.”

Neither Tony, nor Nikki moved.

“Listen. I’ve been on the phone with the National Guard all day, trying to talk them out of rolling tanks up the PCH, knocking down your front door and taking these.” Rhodey pointed towards the suits. “They’re gonna take your suits, Tony, okay? They’re sick of the games.”

“Hey bud. How about you shut it?” Nikki countered.

“Little girl, this hasn’t anything to do with you. This is between me and Tony. How about you go back to Becky?” Rhodey scolded her.

“How about I shove my foot up your ass?” Nikki warned. “Can’t you see the poor old man is trying to think? Even I know better than to interrupt their brains when they’re working. Don’t you like being alive?”

“I don’t have time for this.” Rhodey scoffed. He went back to scolding Tony. “You said nobody else would possess this technology for twenty years. Well, guess what? Somebody else had it yesterday. It’s not theoretical anymore.” He walked up to Tony’s side of the car. “Are you listening to me?”

And he saw it. He saw that even in the dark light of the lab, with only the biography of Ivan Vanko lighting up his face, Tony looked half-dead.

“Are you okay?” Rhodey asked.

“Let’s go.” Tony replied instead. He climbed out of the car, promptly falling.

Nikki stayed in the car, squeezing the wheel. 

“Hey, man. Hey, hey! You alright?” Rhodey asked his friend.

“Yeah, I should get to my desk.” Tony instructed. Nikki glanced over her shoulder to see Tony being guided to his desk. Nothing interesting, she went back to looking at Vanko’s history. “See that cigar box?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s palladium.”

“Is that supposed to be smoking?”

“If you must know, it’s neutron damage. It’s from the reactor wall.”

“You had this in your body? And how about the high-tech crossword puzzle on your neck?”

“Road rash. Thank you.” Nikki heard the mechanical noises of Tony placing the reactor back in his chest. She hummed, climbing out of the car. She sat on the back, watching the two men at the table. “What are you looking at?”

“I’m looking at you.” Rhodey answered. “You wanna do this whole lone gunslinger act and it’s unnecessary. You don’t have to do this alone.”

“You know, I wish I could believe that. I really do.” Tony countered. “But you’ve gotta trust me. Contrary to popular belief, I know exactly what I’m doing.”

Nikki snorted.

Rhodey sighed. He walked towards the door. Apparently thinking if Tony wanted to be alone, then he would be.

Which left Nikki alone with him.

“Shouldn’t you be annoying Becky?” Tony asked.

Nikki shook her head. “From what I guess, you’re doing a good enough job yourself.” She hopped off the car, walking towards the table. She eyed the smoking palladium core. “Becky helped you build that, yeah?”

Tony didn’t answer.

“Think she knew it would be killing you?” Nikki went on. “Cause I don’t know if you noticed, but she looks at you sometimes. All guilty. Like she’s done something to you, and you don’t look her way. Makes a person think she did something wrong and you haven’t forgiven her for it.”

Tony didn’t answer. He looked down at his health concoction.

“But that’s stupid. I’m stupid.” Nikki shrugged, sliding her hands into her pockets. “Cause I’ve known Becky for a few days- and if she did wrong by me? I’d forgive her in a second. You’ve known her all her life. You’d forgiven her in less than that.”

“Go upstairs, get yourself a drink.” Tony instructed.

Nikki hummed. She walked towards the door, hesitating at the last second.

“If you die, I think she’d go insane.” Nikki stated. She pulled the door open. “Cause having a sister is great- but I think she actually likes having a dad around.”

Then she left, to get the suggested drink. For Becky though. Becky needed a few good drinks after this mess.


	9. Chapter 08

The party was gaining traction. A lot of the people that had been invited- mostly as fillers, as I barely knew any of their names, were coming into the house. It loud from the lab- which I had been hoping to hide away in until it all died down. Or at least until real action started where I could stop it.

Nikki stumbled down the stairs. How she avoided breaking her neck, I’ll never understand. She pushed the door open- music blared through it.

“Sis get up here!” Nikki pleaded. She made her way towards me.

Around me were various hologram models. Some were upgrades for my suit, some for Nikki’s, a few were actually the work-ups for an AI that I had been curious about designing. Granted making AI’s hadn’t gone well for me in the past...hopefully someday I’ll figure out how to make one that wasn’t a psychopath.

Maybe.

Though my first instinct had been to tell JARVIS to turn a blind eye, I’d been convinced to let JARVIS help. He had some ideas about the newly dubbed  _ ‘FRIDAY’. _

Nikki pushed past those holograms to get to me. She wrapped an arm over my shoulder. She was wearing something not unsurprising on a dominatrix. A leather skirt with garter belts connected to the boots, a light pink tube top that she purposefully placed to expose more of her chest, and black leggings up to the skirt. It suited her, actually.

“This party is _ the best _ .” Her breath reeked of alcohol. Or dick- could be either of them, really. She liked to mix. “ _ Come play with me.” _

“No.” I pushed the brat off me, turning back to the equations. “There’s not a lot I can get done before-”

“You’re always working!” Nikki pouted. “Let loose! Have fun! It’s all going to be yours in a bit anyway-”

The party music paused at just the right moment for a slap to echo in the lab.

Nikki stayed silent as she got herself to a standing position.

“Don’t-” I warned her, seething with Emotion. Suddenly- I had never felt more enraged. If this was how Bruce was on a daily basis, I don’t blame him for becoming the Hulk. “Don’t make jokes like that. Did you forget why we’re even _ here _ ?”

Nikki blinked. Her usual levels of intelligence numbed by alcohol. She had a good tolerence- she had to have gone _ hard _ to be this stupid. “If I did?”

A loud _ ‘why was I cursed to this life’  _ groan fell from my mouth. Course, there was no one to blame but my...Author who is up there laughing at me. Damn you, Author, damn you!

“We’re here to save Tony Stark.” I stressed to here. “ _ Save  _ his life- not  _ end it _ . You fucking  _ idiot.” _

Nikki shrugged. “Meh. Life, death, what’s the point of it if you don’t have fun?”

“What’s the point of fun if it’s constant?” I countered. Then I realized I was having an argument with a drunk girl. So who’s the idiot now?

Nikki snorted. “Yeah but what- what if you-” She hiccuped. She wiped at her chin. “What’s the- you’re too high strung. Come upstairs- I saw drugs. Come do drugs.”

“I’m not doing  _ drugs  _ at Tony Stark’s birthday party.” I argued.

“What better time is there?” Nikki pointed out. I glared at her. “One of them was  _ Sandwich _ .” She gave me a not-at-all-subtle wink.

“...Sandwich?”

_ “Sandwich!” _ Nikki tempted.

“...for the record I don’t like this.” I told her, slowly being convinced to join the party. “The party- I shouldn’t get high during the party.”

Nikki began walking back towards the door. “You’re right! Get out of those lab sweats- put on something pretty!”

“Don’t objectify me!”

“Don’t prud-ish me!” Nikki countered before walking back upstairs.

_ Damn her...it’s been  _ ages  _ since I had Sandwich...it sounds so  _ fun _...but work...but Sandwich... _

 

==NM2==

 

So I’d changed into something more ‘party’ ready. Nikki must’ve had Natasha do shopping- I’ll never forgive her for robbing me of that image. Now I was walking around the party in a teal pantsuit: corset around the chest, bow around the waist. Natasha even added a pair of heels (which I discarded for loafers) and a silver necklace (discarded for my lollipop necklace).

Then it was time to get Sandwich.

For those who are unaware, Sandwich is a codeword from the show  _ ‘How I Met Your Mother’ _ , which the narrator used in place of weed. 

Yes. Apparently someone at the party _ did _ have Sandwich.

It was Nikki.

Why am I surprised?

Of _ course _ Nikki had drugs.

Only I couldn’t be too pissed- she’d shared. Like a proper sister.

A good thing too. Being high is the only logical reason for watching Iron Man scratch a record at a party.

Yep.

I was high.

No two ways about it.

“Yeah I found good stuff.” Nikki chuckled in my ear. “It’s amazing the shit you find when you’re scavenging a dead guy’s place.” 

I hummed. “...your’s?”

Nikki scoffed, grinning. “Would it really be any other way?” She brought the spliff out from her mouth. She blinked at it for a few seconds. “Do...do you think...when peodo’s die...they go to a special place to wait until I die where I can beat the shit out of them forever?”

I took the spliff out of her hands, having a take myself. “You’re never gonna die. My luck’s not that good.”

Nikki giggled. “I’m gonna suck a dick.” She sauntered off.

It took me nearly a minute to notice she had gone. Even then, it was because Pepper had walked up to my side. There had been this statue I had seen a hundred times before but never really looked at because it was...it was gray but also black and it was a lady but the lady was running but she wasn’t very good at it.

_ ‘How distressing.’ _

At the sight of the red hair, I squished the spliff under my loafers. 

“Becky. Did you know about this?” Pepper asked. She motioned her head towards Iron Man, who was waving to a cheering party crowd.

“Whaaa?” Looking over I did my best to remind myself to stay cool. Some of my other experiences under this taught me I was  _ chatty _ when high. Also shit at keeping secrets. Also paranoid. But I’m trying really hard to ignore that instinct. “That’s not good. He should stop.”

Pepper sighed. She pressed her hand against the side of her head. “I can’t- I don’t even know what to do right now.”

“He’s gonna fall down if he keeps doing that.” I reasoned. “That won’t be safe.”

She walked away from me.

“Another successful secret.” I mumbled to myself. “Author I’m good at this.”

Only she returned a minute later with Rhodey. I beamed at him. He looked past me towards the stumbling Iron Man. 

“You gotta be kidding me.” Rhodey deadpanned. There was a loud smash from behind me. I winced. Turning around, I saw Iron Man trying to push himself to his feet. “That’s it, I’m making-”

“No, no, no. Don’t call anyone.” Pepper pleaded.

Rhodey whirled around to her. “Pepper. This is ridiculous. I just stuck my _ neck  _ out for this guy.”

“I know. I know. I get it. I’m gonna handle it, okay?” Pepper assured him. “Just let me handle it.”

“Handle it.” Rhodey warned. “Or I’m gonna have to.”

Pepper nodded. She walked over towards the DJ booth.

I blew out a breath. “We wouldn’t want that. That’d- that would mess up- something.”

Rhodey gave me an odd look.

_ ‘Be careful, Morgan, he’s suspicious.’ _

“Oh that’s not good.” I mumbled

“You know, the question I get asked most often is,  _ ‘Tony, how do you go to the bathroom in the suit?’ _ ” Iron Man began.

In the silence, I gagged. Yes. We had installed that. Lucky I hadn’t done that personally. That would be awkward.

“Just like that.” Iron Man told them. The crowd cheered.

Pepper walked up to his side. She pulled the mic away from him. Iron Man waved at the crowd. “Does this guy know how to throw a party or what?”

The crowd whooped and hollered. I gave a half hearted wave. Iron Man waved back. He leaned into the mic, pointing my way.

“Hey Beck! When did you get here?” He asked.

“I live here!” I replied. “I don’t think I left since Tuesday!”

The crowd laughed.

_ ‘Shit I said that out loud.’ _

“I love you.” He told me.

I laughed- not believing it. “Right!” I replied. He didn’t love me- he loved the  _ idea  _ of me. The image of Becky Stark I showed to the world, showed to everyone except my sister.

_ He just loved the daughter that made him look good _

_ He didn’t love  _ me

_ That’s too stupid _

_ If he really loved me- _

_ He’d know what it was doing being uninvolved _

_ Not being able to help _

_ He’d know _

_ He’d know _

_ But he isn’t. _

_ So he doesn’t. _

“Unbelievable!” Pepper laughed, tensely. “Thank you so much. Tony, we all thank you so much for such a wonderful night. And we’re gonna say good night now, and thank you all for coming.”

“No, no, no, we can’t-” Pepper moved the mic out of his range. She and Tony started muttering back and forth. Tony swayed drunkenly.

I blew out a breath. Rhodey watched the exchanged, with stiff shoulders.

She handed the mic back to Tony. She took the champagne bottle. Tony laughed into the mic.

“Pepper Potts. She’s right. The party’s over.” Tony told the crowd. They all whined. “Then again, the party was over for me, like, an hour and a half ago. The  _ after-party _ starts in fifteen minutes. And if anybody,  _ Pepper _ , doesn’t like it, there’s the door.”

Tony aimed towards the door. In his drunken state he ended up firing on the glass barrier around that statue from earlier. 

“Yeah!” Tony laughed. The crowd laughed too. They all yelled drunkenly in excitement.

“She should’ve tried running better.” I mumbled. My head nodded, agreeing with what that smart person just said. 

Rhodey’s glare intensified. It should be on fire right now.

“You should go.” My Head was still nodding- by the way- it liked the motion. Soothed it to sleep. “Be- Be War Machine.”

Rhodey stared. The sentence having no sense to him.

“It’s- it’s downstairs. Happy Birthday!” I whispered (poorly).

With a better angry glare, Rhodey looked off towards Tony. Party girls were throwing up bottles, which Tony boasted to pieces with the repulsor. People cheered. That got Rhodey storming off towards the lab. 

I watched vacantly as Tony destroyed more bottles. Why was in vacant? Cause I was spiraling into a paranoid tailout.

Lucky for me Nikki came back.

“Dude. This is awesome.” She threw her arm over my shoulder. I tensed- startled by her presence. “Shit. You spiraling? You always make that- that face when doing- the thing.”

“Are my mind control powers back?” I asked raspy- I thought it was a whisper.

Nikki blinked. “What?”

“I told Rhodey to do something then he did it. Are they back? I didn’t like those powers. They were scary.” I explained in a panicked rush. That also could’ve been because somebody brought out a watermelon.

Nikki hummed. She patted her chest. “Test it on me.”

“Sit.” I instructed.

Nikki blinked distant purple eyes. An explosion of watermelon went off to my left.  _ Aw shit that was gonna fuck up the carpet. What if I step on glass? I would heal but how would it look? _ “No. You don’t have them.”

“But is it because you’re immune?”

“Why would I be immune?”

“Related? Or...that’s  _ your _ superpower?” I wondered. “I’m standing on the sandwich.” I admitted.

My sister looked down at my feet, confused. “... _ bitch _ ...why?”

“The military was gonna find out.” I replied.

To probe it, Rhodey marched up behind us.

His metal feet were  _ loud. _

He was bad at hide-n-seek.

“I’m only gonna say this once. Get out.” Rhodey warned. He closed the face plate.

Nikki grabbed my wrist. “You were right. The military found out.”

“That’s not good.” I grabbed her wrist, dragging her through the crowd of party goers to a couch. Did I step on glass? Well I’m wearing shoes so it’s not as bad.

 “You don’t deserve to wear one of these. Shut it down!” Rhodey scolded Tony.

Nikki hummed. “I’m hungry.”

“Have some watermelon.” I offered, gesturing the pile of only slightly charred fruit on the floor.

“That’s why I’m hungry- ugh I’m not eating floor food. Five seconds, man.” Nikki complained, petulant.

“You right, you right.”

“Goldstein.”

“Yes, Mr Stark?”

“Give me a phat beat to beat my buddy’s ass to.” Tony laughed.

“Petulant is a funny word.” I giggled. The song began to play. I gasped. “ _ Queen _ ! I love Queen!”

Nikki giggled. “Everyone knows you love Queen. No wonder you’re-”

War Machine threw Iron Man through a wall. They ended up in the gym.

“Damn...were gonna have to buy so much glass.” I realized.

Nikki hummed. “Hey...hey Nighty-Night?”

“Yes Missy-Miss?” I replied.

“Weren’t- weren’t there more bodies?” She asked, sounding hopelessly confused. She looked out on the destroyed party. 

“Bodies are dead.” I corrected her with a giggle. She got those two confused a lot. “People are hid-hide- _ ugh words are stupid. _ ”

“But like...won’t they die in this fight?”

“They‘ll live.” I brushed off. Pushing myself to my feet, I blinked. When my eyes opened I was downstairs in front of a terrified crowd of people. “See! Told you Nik- Where’s Nikki?”

“Becky!” Pepper let out a reliever breath. She rushed onto me- I sidestepped a hug. “Thank god! Okay we need to stop this.”

“On it.” I turned to the crowd. “Hey!  _ Go home! _ ”

Some of the more sober minds did. A lot of people hesitated.

_ ‘Well I guess this means I really  _ didn’t _ get those mind control powers back.’ _

“GO!” I repeated. My hands glowed golden. “NOW!”

The rest of them scuttled off towards the cars. With them gone I turned to Pepper. “Was I a good noodle?”

Pepper gawked at me. “Becky, are you alright?”

“No! There’s  _ so much wrong _ .” At that point, Natasha was walking up. “Like that! This was her idea.”

She walked up, cool and collected. “Ms Stark-”

“No. Nononono. This was you.” I pointed at Natasha, stepping closer until I was nearly in her face. Distantly, I was aware that Nikki was stumbling into the room. “You- you told him this was a good idea. Cause- cause you  _ know. _ ”

Natasha kept her cool expression. She showed no reaction at being scolded so openly. “Know what?”

“That- you  _ know _ .” I stressed.

Pepper put her hand on my shoulder. I jerked it off. “Becky! What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“No! I’m high and I’m spiraling!” I argued. Pepper sighed in exasperation. “I’m yelling at Na-Natashalie.”

The spy showed slight expression. Well in her eyes. She kept her face blank.

Nikki giggled. “She’s gonna  _ get it _ -”

“You think someone can keep a secret in this house from  _ me _ ?” I scoffed. “Nah. I’m a-”

Cutting me off, Iron Man and War Machine crashes through the ceiling. I immediately took a protective stance in front of the three women.

“Becky! Pepper!” Happy yelled. He rushed towards us. I stepped back, letting him take Pepper. He glared at me sternly. “Get out of here. Get out of here now.”

I turned to Nikki. “Go. Now!”

She nodded- taking in my no-nonsense tone. She followed Happy and Pepper.

“Hey, Becks, you too!” Happy scolded.

“You want it? Take it!” Iron Man reaches out to beat Rhodey into the countertop.

“You think I’m leaving him now?” I scoffed.

“Hey I’m hungry!” Nikki stated. She grabbed my arm, pulling me outside. “Do the- do the moving thing. Get me food.”

“No!”

“But I’m  _ hungry _ .” Nikki pouted. “You gonna stop feeding me?”

_ Damn it...she has activated some hidden genetic code in my body...I can’t let my sister starve. That’s really not good. She could- well not die- but complain until I comply. _

_ She’s a dastardly fiend. _

_ I trained her well. _

At the side, Happy was keeping watch on Pepper. Pepper was watching myself and Nikki, a calculating look in her eyes. She had seen me with Nikki before, not truly taking us in. When I was sober I would recall a spark of realization, she’d realized who got me high.

“What do you want?” I asked with a huff.

Nikki’s pout shifted to a wide grin. She opened her mouth to answer.

An explosion cut her off.

The building shook. In the distance, I saw a table flipping off the cliff side.

I inhaled sharply.  _ ‘Tony!’ _

My power brought me to Tony’s side. The entire room was trashed- half burnt, half smashed. The shine of Rhodey’s suit was obvious amongst the rubble of their shared repulsor blast.

Mechanics whirred at my side. Looking down, I saw the lights of the Iron Man mask turn back on. He looked up at me.

I shook my head at him.

Across the room, War Machine was on his feet. Without saying a word, he blasted off.

I knelt down at Iron Man’s side. My instinct was to put a hand on his shoulder but I thought better of it. Iron Man was wilting.

What could even be said?

Something good?

Something bad?

I’m too high to come up with Emotions like that.

So I teleported back down to the lab. I could get work done, ready to clean up the house.

Like Nikki said, it was probably gonna be mine in a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was late! I was planning out the next year of updates. Just ya know- easy work. Ha! Also I ended writing the wrong chapter- an update for a later MTU story. My ‘bad’.  
> Want updates on things like when I'll update? I'm on Instagram- authora97.


	10. Chapter 09

_ “You scared all those people.” _

_ “No I didn’t!” _

_ “I’m so proud.” _

 

==NM2==

 

Not gonna lie, it’s been a rough night. 

The high went down not long after the party ended. Could’ve been my metabolism, could’ve been the stress of the party, who knows? Main point: I was sober, along with hating every second of it.

It hadn’t helped that Nikki...existed. Nah- that sounded harsh. It didn’t help that she existed in my bedroom, cause apparently sleeping in a guest room was too good for her. That’s right she had to be there when I had yet another nightmare about _ Her _ which led to Nikki watching me go through vampire-checks.

She was concerned about me.

_ Nikki  _ was showing  _ concern _ .

No.

That’s not how this worked.

She was never supposed to be concerned about _ anything. _

She’s a sociopath.

Showing care is not in her personality.

It’s not supposed to be in her personality.

Fuck Tony Stark for making Nikki have to show Emotion.

“That was, the absolute last time I let you talk me into taking Sandwich while I’m working.” I scolded her, while working on a press statement for the many reporters that had wanted to know about the Stark birthday party blow-up. At the same time I was working on the last touch-ups to the projects I had been working on the night before.

Nikki chuckled. “But you’re always working, plus you’re so fun when you’re on Sandwich.”

“Just for that- I’m taking away your suit’s helmet.”

“Hold on- my suit had a helmet?!” Nikki yelped. To avoid her argument, I picked up my phone then briskly walked away. “Wait come back!”

So I teleported off. After sending out an email to the PR guy. He deserves a raise- or was it a she? That’s something I should really know by now.

 

==NM2==

 

Now I was watching Tony Stark sit in a donut.

It had taken a lot of internal arguing to decide on coming here. A lot of good reasons not to hang around Tony Stark right now. Unfortunately I know he can’t do this alone- not without falling apart inside.

Also- screw waiting for Nick Fury. There were more important things right now than keeping up with the plot.

“FATHER!” I called out.

Iron Man turned to me, spotting me below the donut shop in the street. He lowered his sunglasses enough to get a clearer view. Still hungover, no doubt.

“GET OUT OF THE DONUT!” I warned him. “OR I WILL THROW YOU DOWN!”

After some minutes of headache inducing thought, Tony came down.

 

==NM2==

 

Downstairs, I was bringing an order of food to the table. It was a waste of a trip to a donut store if I left without donuts. There was a slight chance this was leftover ‘munchies’ from last night.

Tony sat across from me at the booth. He kept his sunglasses on, despite us being inside and the sun not being nearly as bad in here. I took a cautious sip of my hot chocolate, not eager to burn my throat again. It finally felt normal to have a working throat again. It gave some time to think. To work around a proper statement, something that would pack the proper verbal and nonverbal punches against him.

There were the easy ones, but they were lazy. What a schoolyard bully would use against a weaker foe. Not good enough for this, they wouldn’t give out the proper force I was going for here. Those were pety. Mine needed to stick.

Turns out silence was the perfect punishment to get the ball rolling. Tony hated sitting in silence. Hated silence in general. Lucky for me, I guess. “So you know? About the-” He motioned to his chest, around the Arc Reactor shining brightly around his suit.

Silently, I nodded. Picking up a donut I took a bit of it. It was a long, silent time chewing. What can I say? Donuts like these deserved to be savored.

Tony worried the skin of his lip. He looked down at the donuts still sitting in wait. I paid his look no attention, focusing on it more from the side of my eyes. To him my focus was on the breakfast I’d bought.

“It’s not that bad.”

Finishing off another donut, I grabbed a fresh one.

“Really, it’s not.”

The bite I took managed to take out half the donut. Impressive work, as I had a sip of hot chocolate to help wash it down. 

“You don’t need to worry-”

Despite my best efforts, that statement got a dismissive snort out of me. Me, not worry? Me? The girl who definitely should be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder? The girl who will go over her Plans a dozen upon dozen times before going through with it? Who on any alteration to that Plan begins to fall into an anxiety induced stupor?

My eyes aren’t on my sister, so I’m worried she’s doing something that will get her in jail.

Right now I’ve made us sit with ours sides towards the front door, so I could keep watch of any threats. Sitting beside this glass window already felt like me holding up a sign asking for someone to shoot at us.

The guy who I’ve been living with, mentally regarding as a parental figure, is refusing to fight for his life. Even though by dying it would mark me as a failure to keep him alive.

So I stood up from the table, walking over to the counter. They had just cooked some more donuts. They were warmer, and the chocolate ones I liked.

When I returned there was an order in my arms. Tony was nervously glancing at me as I walked up.

At the same time, I noticed Nick Fury was walking up to the table. It got me to roll my eyes. As he came up to the table I took the spot beside Tony. At his questioning look I handed him the cup in my hands.

To his relieved surprise, it was coffee. Though because I was still very much irked the coffee had none of his favorite fixings. If he wanted good coffee, he had to be good. The system had worked with my sister with a reward of weapons/murder.

Fury took the booth seat across from Tony. I regarded him a detached expression. He leaned back, sitting across the seat while leaning against the window. “Save any for me?” He made a meaningful look with his one eye toward my donuts.

So I took a bite from one of them. Not looking away from his eye. To further annoy him, going against my instincts in matters of grudges, I slid one donut to Tony. He accepted it.

Message:  _ get your own, you over priveleged fuck. This is a family moment. _

Fury only gave me a grin in reply. “Fair.”

“I told you I don’t wanna join your super-secret boy band.” Tony spoke up, between bites. 

“Don’t wanna be the token-female, honestly.” I agreed. Picking up my hot chocolate from Fury’s side, I took another sip. It had cooled down to a more relaxing temperature.

Tony gave only the slightest odd look that my first spoken words in his presence since the donut had been towards Fury. Good, let him be offended.

“No, no, no. See, I remember, you do everything yourselves.” Fury recalled. He glanced at Tony’s neck. The Iron Man suit did a good job hiding the grey lines of sickness. “How’s that working out for you.”

My grip on a donut tightened ever so slightly. I took a bite to hide the fact that a donut was nearly crumbling under my fingers.

“It’s- It’s- It’s- I’m sorry.” Tony leaned forward. The mechanics of his suit whirring as he moved. “I don’t wanna get off on the wrong foot. Do I look at the patch or the eye?”

Fury only grinned at him. I had to keep my detached expression together. It was holding up rather well.

“Honestly I’m a bit hungover.” Tony rambled onwards. “I’m not sure if you’re real of if I’m having-”

“I am very real. I’m the realest person you’re ever gonna meet.” Fury challenged.

“Just my luck.” Tony turned to me. He only hesitated a second by the warning look on my face. “Did you see any staff?”

No reply. Not verbal or otherwise.

Fury “That’s not looking so good.” Fury motioned to the marks on Tony’s neck. He had exposed them by tilting his head.

“I’ve been worse.” Tony replied vaguely, focusing on me. “But really, kid, see anything?”

Nothing.

I caught a glimpse of the spider approaching. She sashayed up, as if the swerving of her hips would distract us from her familiar face. My expression towards her was also cold

“We’ve secured the perimeter but I don’t think we should hold it for too much longer.” She informed Fury, walking right up to our booth. 

At my side, Tony stared. “You’re fired.”

“That’s not up to you.” She took the seat across from me, watching me.

I watched her right back. “You don’t meet my requirements for an employee. Should you consider ever actually being under my employ, you wouldn’t be hired.”

Natasha gave me a slight quirk of her eyebrow in reply. “No?”

I shook my head.  _ ‘You would have to follow Darcy’s rules- my Rules. You wouldn’t last a week.’ _

“Tony, I want you to meet Agent Romanoff.” Fury introduced.

“Hi.” Tony greeted lamely. He took off his sunglasses, dropping them down while rubbing at his head.

“I’m a SHIELD shadow. Once we knew you were ill, I was tasked to you by Director Fury.” Natasha reported.

“I suggest you apologize.” Tony replied.

“I have no need.” Natasha turned her focus back on me again. Myself, was sipping casually on a hot chocolate. “There was much less time to shadow you while working with Becky.”

“Because, what, you started shadowing her?” Tony pointed out in a tone that was a borderline threat if Natasha refused to give the perfect answer.

Natasha turned to me. There was a challenge in her dark green eyes.  _ ‘You wanna tell him, or let me?’ _

“When boxing with Happy, you tossed him to the ground after he hit you from behind. You reacted on instinct, not defense. Only someone with training could do that- your file said nothing on that level of training.” I reported.

Natasha gave me a lift of an eyebrow in reply. I took a bite from the donut, casually not giving a fuck.

“My name, then?” She prompted.

“Can’t say.” I replied vaguely. Though she hid it well, I could see the frustration in the corners of her eyes. “I like knowing everything about the people around me.”

_ There. _

_ Let the spider use that in her fucking profile. _

_ Wanna see if she’ll give a proper one- not skewed by her own input. _

“You’ve been very busy.” Fury remarked to Tony. “You made your kid your CEO, you’re giving away all your stuff. You let your friend fly away with your suit. Now, if I didn’t know better-”

“You don’t know better. I didn’t give it to him.” Tony stopped Fury, even though Fury hadn’t mentioned that bit- hadn’t even finished suggesting it-maybe he’d been suggesting was preparing for death-maybe Tony  _ did _ know that but refused to talk about dying- “He took it.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. He  _ took  _ it?” Fury repeated. “You’re Iron Man and he just  _ took  _ it?” Fury went on. Let me tell you, it took a lot of annoyance to keep me from smirking at him. “The little brother walked in there, kicked your ass and  _ took  _ your suit?” He turned to his shadow. “Is that possible?”

“Well, according to Mr Stark’s database security guidelines, there are redundancies to prevent unauthorised usage.” Natasha reported.

“This amount of sarcasm is lethal.” I remarked dryly to them. “Just letting you know if he drops dead right now, it’s because of the sarcasm.

“You’ve been busy too. Reconnecting with family.” Fury remarked.

That hit a trigger I had barely known existed.  _ ‘Mess with her and I rip out your teeth then stuff them up your- _ “She found me, believe it or not. Pain in the ass, like all Nicks in my life.”

Fury gave me a dry stare. Finally, I allowed myself to give him a smug grin.

“What do you want from us?” Tony conceded to Fury.

“What do we want from you? What do you want from me?” Natasha walked away from the table, off to get the lithium dioxide. “You have become a problem, a problem I have to deal with. Contrary to your belief, you are not the centre of my universe. I have bigger problems than you in the southwest region to deal with.”

I turned back just in time for Natasha to aim the needle at Tony’s neck. Reaching out I snatched it from her hands, backing away from the table.

The SHIELD agents stared at me, confused. Tony especially so.

“What just happened?”

“What’s in this?” I demanded of them, ignoring Tony. “He has enough chemicals rushing through his system. You gonna add more to this mess?”

“It’s lithium dioxide.” Fury assured me. “It’s going to help him.”

“Wait they were gonna put that in me?” Tony asked. “Were you gonna steal my kidney and sell it?” 

“Help him how?” I pressed.

Fury leaned forward in his stolen booth seat. “It’s only gonna take the edge off.”

“Could you please not do anything awful for five seconds?” Tony requested of them.

“If this does anything else, I will kill you both and hide the bodies where they will never be found.” I warned them.

Fury nodded in understanding. “Romanoff.” He motioned to the space beside him. The dyed brunette took the seat.

Kneeling back on Tony’s side, I showed Tony the needle. He stared at it, cautious.

“What, you gonna stick it in?”

“Just take comfort if you die that you’ll be Avenged.” Then I stuck the needle in his neck, pushing down on it.

Tony let out a yelp as this happened. Once the serum was gone I pulled away, handing the needle back to Natasha. Tony flinched as the multiple sensations washed over him.

“Thanks Becks.” He croaked at me. Tony turned his annoyance at Fury. “Why?”

“We’re trying to get you back to work.” Fury explained.

Tony motioned to the used needle. “Give me a couple of boxes of that. I’ll be right as rain.”

“It’s not a cure, it just abates the symptoms.” Natasha explained.

“Doesn’t look like it’s gonna be an easy fix.” Fury added.

“It’s not.” I added. “For months, I tried finding a cure.  _ Any _ cure. Course, I didn’t know dear ole Dad was doing the same in the basement. Literally, the only thing that would work doesn’t exist.”

Tony, for his credit, let me rant.

“And I know it doesn’t exist, because I tried everything else. Replacements for palladium, replacing the hole in his chest, just transferring his consciousness to an AI or a bot,  _ nothing would work. _ ”

“You tried putting me in a bot?” Tony was probably getting mental images of himself rolling about the lab just like Dummy. 

Honestly- it was on the list of pros.

“Thought about it, you’d complain about ethics.” I dismissed. “Every combination, every permutation of every known element. Which of course only leaves room for the unknown elements and as you can gather,  _ those don’t exist.” _

“Well, I’m here to tell you, it does.” Fury revealed.

“Then I hate you for taking this long to show up with it.” I countered- giving Fury nor Natasha an inch. Hating them on another level now, I teleported back to the house.

 

==NM2==

 

It occurred to Tony Stark as they were leaving the donut shop how insulting it had been to tell Becky not to worry.

Clearly, she’d been worrying for a long time. 

And- until Nikki had shown up- she’d done it alone.

 

==NM2==

 

Back at the mansion, it hadn’t looked any better.

Nikki was at the door, holding out a broomstick. I snatched it from her. She let out a groaned huff. “Just clean it up. If you start pulling at your hair, I’m shaving your head.”

Accepting the aid, I started off on the cleanup of the living areas of the house. Cleaning up the mess had usually helped me calm down. It gave me something to do. 

“You’re helping!” I informed her.

Nikki swore. “Can’t just my giving you the broom do the job?”

“Can’t you having sex once a week satisfy you?” I countered. There was a loud whine following that. “Thought not. JARVIS, please tell me you’re the good adult in my life?”

_ “Always, Ms Stark.” _

“You are truly the only good thing in my life, JARVIS.” I praised him. Nikki let out a loud complaint. “Do you want me getting started on how much you’re a pain in my ass?”

“Only if you admit that pain comes from the stick you never take out!”

“I’m  _ holding a beating stick _ . Right now.” I challenged.

Nikki scoffed- then let out a panicked shriek as I dashed after her with the broom raised high.

“JARVIS call somebody about the glass!” I called out while chasing the assassin. “Also food and whenever Dad gets back with SHIELD!”

_ “Yes, Ms Stark. What should I do about Ms Stevens?” _

“Ignore any pleas for help!” I called out. “Her safeword is Buddhism! Keep an ear out once the beating starts!”

“You’ll never take me ali-  _ ow _ !”

“ _ The beatings will continue until morale improves!” _

_ “This is why my suit needs a helmet!” _

_ “And to think, people are concerned about the mental wellbeing of the Stark family.” _ JARVIS mused from the ceiling.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To you have any idea how odd it is to say out loud “time to write the chapter with the donut?” It’s a mindfucker.
> 
> Also just wanted to say- thanks to everyone that’s been reading this! It means a lot. We’re just over halfway through with NM2. Leave a comment so I know what you think so far! Or just message me jokes- it will literally make my day and ruin the day of my friends.


	11. Chapter 10

The house was mostly clean by the time the two not-Avengers and Too-Blind-Too-Furious rolled by. The only thing that needed fixing now was the structure of the building, and the windows. The window men had- according to JARVIS refused to come setup until they were sure the building wouldn’t drop on them.

Worse yet, Pepper had been calling. Seeing as Natasha was failing at her job as my PA, Pepper had filled up her absence. She was fielding to me a lot of calls, from business and media. The PR guys had been calling me too- well Pepper who forwarded them to me- so I was talking to them, talking to Pepper, minding Nikki, while mindlessly cleaning the house.

After her morale improved Nikki helped clean. On threat of further beatings, clearly. She’d had a lot of training in cleaning up a mess- this one just had less blood than usual. Nikki diligently swept away debris from any room she was sent in, as long as I promised she could use her choice of debris for her next B&E. It was an easy agreement, with my foot resting on her neck and a broomstick aimed towards her gut.

(We were such a loving family.)

I had changed out of my clothes too- they had practically been my pajamas. Now it was a dark blue shirt with short sheer sleeves, and jeans.

JARVIS alerted me to the cars pulling up. I was tying up all the issues on the phone in neat little bows- well as neat as I could make bows. 

SHIELD agents came in first, straight out of a  _ Men in Black  _ movie no doubt. I kept them in the corner of my eyes as I put two chairs back into place.

Tony was walked in by Fury. It did nothing to calm me down. 

Tony didn’t even break stride when he saw me. He walked up to the chairs that had to be pulled out from storage. All the others were fucked up. I’m half convinced Nikki stole the material from a schoolyard fence, then made them into chairs. Who wants metal chairs in LA? He dropped himself down in one. He held out an arm for the other.

“Come on, Becks, take a seat.” Tony offered.

_ Wow, a chair in my own house. He’s so chivalrous. _

I declined the chair, giving it to Nick Fury instead. The man accepted. I stood between them, texting away problems on my phone. A SHIELD agent brought a fancy bottle of water for us. Tony was still coming off a hangover. I could do without anything from SHIELD. With that water, they brought a robe for Tony. Apparently they didn’t like him just wearing the tight black shirt and leggings.

“That thing in your chest is based on unfinished technology.” Fury explained once they had both properly settled.

“No, it was finished.” Tony countered. He had a sip of the water provided. So what that they took it from our fridge, I’m not touching it. “It has never been particularly effective until we miniaturized it and she put it in my-”

“No. Howard said the arc reactor was the stepping stone to something greater.” Fury explained. “He was about to kick off an energy race that was gonna dwarf the arms race. He was onto something big, something so big that it was gonna make the nuclear reactor look like a triple-A battery.”

_ The Tesseract, of course. Maybe he did see it for what you had in mind for it. _

_ But I know SHIELD saw it was a way to make new weapons. _

_ The ones from  _ Avengers _. _

_ So keep your praise speech for then, alright? _

“Just him, or Anton Vanko in on this too?” Tony questioned.

Fury seemed to know that was exactly where Stark would go. “Anton Vanko is the other side of that coin. Anton saw it as a way to get rich. When your father found out, he had him deported. When the Russians found out he couldn’t deliver they shipped his ass off to Siberia and he spent the next twenty years in a vodka-fuelled rage. Not quite the environment you want to raise a kid in, the son you had the misfortune of crossing paths with in Monaco.”

“You told me I-  _ we  _ hadn’t tried everything.” Tony corrected. He glanced at me as I sent an angry text to our patent office. “What do you mean we haven’t tried everything? What haven’t we tried?”

“He said that you were the only person with the means and knowledge to finish what he started.” Fury admitted. He made his own cup of water.

“He said that?” Tony questioned, his eyebrow raised in a skeptical arch.

Not gonna lie, I snorted at the comment again. Howard Stark, proud of his son? Not after what I’ve seen of this world. Even the Howard from  _ Captain America _ seemed more focused on the  _ inventions _ , the _ creations, _ than the people wielding them.

“Are you that guy?” Fury asked Tony. “Are you? ‘Cause if you are, then you can solve the riddle of your heart.”

“I’m not the guy. She is.” Tony countered. “She did more to fix this than I did.”

“Shut it.” I told him.

“See? She’s talking to me again!” Tony told Fury. I let out an annoyed sigh. “I’m a bigger fan of my kid than Dad ever was of his. Don’t know where you got your information.”

“What do you remember about your dad?” Fury questioned.

“He was cold, he was calculating. He never told me he loved me. He never even told me he liked me, so it’s a little tough for me to digest when you’re telling me he said the whole future was riding on me and he’s passing it down.” Tony explained. “I don’t get that. You’re talking about a guy who’s happiest day was when he shipped me off to boarding school.”

“That’s not true.” Fury countered, with all the surety of a man who had seen it before his eye.

“Well, then, clearly you knew my dad better than I did.” Tony told him.

“As a matter of fact, I did.” Fury admitted. Two SHIELD agents walked up, carrying a crate of Howard’s stuff. The texting I was doing cut off- a troubling feat. “He was one of the founding members of SHIELD.”

“What?” Tony asked.

“Right, yeah, course he was.” I nodded my head.

“I got a two o’clock.” Fury glanced at his watch, standing up.

“Good. Get out of the house.” I suggested for him.

Fury only gave me a fond quirk of the mouth. 

Tony stood up. “Wait, wait, wait, wait. What’s this?” Tony pointed to the crate. 

“Okay, you’re good, right?” Fury asked us.

“No, I’m not good.” “Yes I can handle it.”

“You got this? Right? Right?” Fury pressed, ignoring Tony’s answers.

“Got what? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to get.”

“It’ll be done.” I told him. Better for everyone he leave the house soon before he accidentally give Tony a heart attack.

Natasha walked into the destroyed room. Beside her was Phil Coulson.

_ Holy shit Phil. _

_ I was in no way ready to see Phil. _

_ Phil you glorious bastard. _

“Natasha will remain a floater at Stark with her cover intact. You remember Agent Coulson, right?” Fury explained.

“Yeah.” Tony answered, non too enthusiastic.

“Hello.” I greeted warmly, giving the agent a genuine smile.

“And Tony, Becky, remember, I got my eye on you.” Fury cautioned. He smirked as he turned away. He left the mansion. The SHIELD agents on guard followed with him.

Tony turned to Natasha. I gave her a side eye over my shoulder. “We’ve disabled all communications.”

“I noticed that.” I held up my phone. “Pepper is gonna kill me when I see her next.”

Natasha kept up her smile. “No contact with the outside world. Good luck.” She walked out.

She walked out, Nikki walked in. Nikki must’ve got torn her clothes, cause now she wore booty jean shorts, and a white wife beater. She watched as Natasha walked out.

“What’s with Red-” She spotted Coulson. She made quick work of covering up her shock. “Who’s that?”

“Agent Coulson.” I told her. When Phil turned to her, I mouthed _ ‘Agent Phil?!’ _ with a wide grin.

Nikki gave a nod. “Right...look I know you joked about sending me to jail-”

That got me laughing. If anything just to have an excuse to laugh. Nikki did too.

“Please.” Tony turned to Phil. The agent did also. “First thing, I need a little bodywork. We’ll put in a little time at the lab. If we could send one of your goon squad down to The Coffee Bean, Cross Creek, for a Starbucks run, or something like that, that’d be nice.”

“I’m not here for that.” Phil told him. “I’ve been authorized by Director Fury to use any means necessary to keep you on premises. If you attempt to leave or play any games, I will tase you and watch Supernanny while you drool into the carpet. Okay?”

“I think I got it, yeah.” Tony nodded, lips flat.

“Enjoy your evening’s entertainment.” Phil invited, motioning down at the crate.

Tony looked down at it. He paid attention to the labelling sticker with his dad’s name on it.

“Dude. Tell me your secrets.” Nikki requested. “Can you shut up Becks too?”

“He can try.” I corrected her.

Phil only smiled at Nikki. He gave her a short nod.

Nikki glanced at me. “I like him.”

“Me too.” I grinned, proud of the little agent.  _ They grow up so fast... _

I was getting ready to move the crate downstairs. Tony had apparently thought that just cause I spoke to him once that I was going to keep talking to him.

“So Becky. Where should we-”

“Agent Coulson, would you mind keeping an ear out for my father as he gets ready? By that I mean, takes a shower? Cause he’s been a mess since last night. I can smell him from here.” I told Phil.

The agent nodded. “Of course.”

“Good.” Without looking at Tony, I turned to Nikki. “Dumbass!”

She saluted. “Ma’am?”

“Head downstairs. I’ll meet you there.”

Nikki cheered. “Is it-”

“Yes.”

“WOOHOO!”

“Look, Beck-” Tony began.

I teleported downstairs, taking the crate with me.

 

==NM2==

 

The crate had been left to the side of the lab. I was getting together all the pieces that I needed for what would be happening while Tony read over the notebooks. 

_ “Ms Stark, Ms Stevens is on her way.” _ JARVIS forewarned. “ _ She appears in a mood.” _

“She’s always in a mood.” I stated. Nikki showed up at the door to the lab. Sure enough, she looked mad. “You can let her in.”

_ “Of course.” _

The door opened with a whoosh. Nikki stormed into the lab.

“You weren’t gonna tell me Tony Stark fucked a super alien?” Nikki asked, offended.

_ Aw shit…  _ “Oh, Phil you dirty gossip.” I mumbled.

“So you did know!” Nikki yelled.

“Never came up.” I replied. My hands were busy organizing the finishing touches.

“Never came- I’m gonna stab you in the eye.” Nikki pulled a knife from her underwear.

“You can try.” I countered. Grabbing one of her new toys, I pressed the button.

The knife flew out of her hand. It latched onto the round device in my palm. Nikki gawked.

“I took it while you slept, added a homing device in the handle.” I explained. Nikki continued to gawk at me. “Wanna know about the rest of your toys?”

“Yes Ma’am.” Nikki replied, sounding much more compliant than before.

She walked towards the work bench. Once there, I showed off her new suit.

The suit had been laid out on a table. In form, it was a lot like mine. Though the color was overall a lime green, it didn’t look tacky. 

“Since we don’t know what powers you have yet, I just went with basics.” I explained. Holding up the torso part of the suit, pointing at various points. “I already showed you the knife thing. Basically, it works like a homing device for your various weapons. It was hard work finding a thing would make in individualistic for your weapons, rather then just bringing every object to you. Throw your knives or other weapons, press that button and it’ll come back to you. No exceptions in testing so far. Field work will have it out even better.”

Nikki listened, attentively. Though she was often aloof, she always paid attention when her fighting skills were involved.

“You got a ninja sword.” I held up the katana for her viewing pleasure. Her eyes widened in delight. She accepted the blade, swinging it about to get a better feel for it. “Take care of that, okay? It can attack via the hilt to the back of your suit.”

Nikki nodded. She glanced at the suit itself. “Is that  _ green _ ?”

“Ah-ah-ah,  _ lime _ green.” I corrected with a vindictive green.

She huffed. She rolled her eyes towards the sky, praying to the Author that I would one day let it go.

“The fabric is bulletproof. Though it doesn’t cover all of your body, it does allow you to be more versatile in fighting. Your powers are unknown so I also added in fire-proofing. It’s durable- like I hit it with one of my beams, and it barely scratched it. We’re siblings so unless Space-Mom did something weird with just me, I’m assuming that your powers will eventually be like mine. Your gloves allow you to fire blasts like me, teleportation is easy as long as you remember to bring your suit-  _ and you will or so help me Author I’ll kill you _ , and being bulletproof is already in the suit.”

Nikki accepted that. She walked up to it, running her hand along the torso of the suit. “It’s hard.” She glanced at me. “You stole this from Edna Mode.”

“Whore you know that’s exactly what I did.” I confirmed. Picking up her new boots, I made sure I had a good grip. The boots were red with black lining. “She wanted it for Supers, it’s going to Supers. This is a rocket boot- nothing else fancy. You can fly with this fucker on your foot. Disclaimer: don’t aim at children or nice folks.”

She let out a put-on groan. She took the other boot, looking it over.

“Be careful. It was expensive.” I warned her.

Nikki chuckled. “Damn...what’s in the belt?”

“...a gun.” 

“...a gun.”

“Yep.”

“I’m an idiot, even I know that pouch is too small for a gun.” Nikki explained.

“Yep.”

“...holy shit. Can my gun shrink?”

Instead of answering, I reached to the pouch where I had put the gun. Opening it I grabbed the handle. 

“Brace.” I warned. Pulling it out ,the gun extended the opening of the pouch. As soon as it was free the pouch closed up- good as new. The gun itself was _ big _ . A sniper rifle that should in no way fit in the phone sized pouch it had been given. 

“It can shrink.” Nikki squealed. She put the katana back down on the table beside the suit. She took the rifle from my hold. “Holy shit you got me a gun that can-”

“It can’t shrink, dumbass.” I scolded. “It’s just- the pouch was designed to have the same effects as cartoon bags. The ones that should in no way be able to hold the amount of stuff inside. I figured with you, you’d need it.”

“How fucking long have you been working on this?” Nikki asked. She held it up, practicing.

“Since I knew I’d have to bring you here too.” I admitted. “So...couple decades.”

Nikki nodded, beaming. “Awesome.”

_ “Indeed.” _

“Shit!” Nikki fumbled the gun. I ducked to avoid being whacked by it. “What the fuck was that?”

“Watch where you point that!” I scolded.

_ “At ease, Ma’am. The safety is still on.” _

“Oh. Okay.” I stood back up, brushing off the creases on my shirt.

Nikki was staring at the gun. “It just talked.”

“Yep.” I confirmed.

“...was that Lady Heather from CSI?”

“Two for two.” I winked.

Nikki grinned. “You put a Domme’s voice in my gun? Why? You already know I’m plenty kinky-”

_ “Ma’am wanted you to have proper training in me.” _ The gun explained. There was a tiny purple light on the side, blinking on and off with the words. Nikki noticed the light, staring down at the gun.  _ “Hello, Nikki Stevens. I am A.S.S.A.S.S.I.N. _ ”

Nikki squealed. “Sis you are the best.” She looked down at the gun. “Assassin. It’s fitting cause I was-”

_ “No. A.S.S.A.S.S.I.N. Anderson Shouldn’t Solve All Situations Shooting Innocent Nobodies.” _ The AI reported. _ “I am a training AI- created to teach Nikki Stevens how to properly fire her rifle. Also to be aware when the rifle is needed- as it is a sniper rifle, not suited for close contact. Distance kills are better suited. Lesson One Complete.” _

I snickered, ducking again to hide my face. Still I felt Nikki’s glare.

“You gave me a talking gun with a shrinking pouch that defies physics to hide it in,  and you managed to ruin it at the same time.” Nikki deadpanned. “You’re the worst.”

That made me laugh. “Duh.” I picked up the final bit of the suit- the important bit. It was a headset that would go beneath her hair- with an eyepiece over her eye. “This is important. It’ll connect you to A.S.S.A.S.S.I.N. during missions. Can’t be seen talking to yourself, that’s my thing. She’ll help you aim until you can do it without innocent casualties.”

Nikki accepted the headband with a glare. “You could’ve just put this in a helmet.”

“There’s a better chance of you getting your powers without one.” I excused, knowing full well that I was lying. “I got mine dying. Maybe that’s how you’ll get yours!”

“And I’m telling you, I need that helmet!”

“And I’m telling you, get a harder skull!” I scolded her.

Nikki groaned.

 

==NM2==

 

Tony Stark came to the basement as I got to fitting Nikki’s suit to her body. We had packed away A.S.S.A.S.S.I.N. in her pouch, powering her down until she would be needed later. Nikki had stripped down- her idea, I said her clothes were fine enough for a fitting. She disagreed. 

To his credit, he didn’t blink at her. He focused more on me. I was busy trying to make sure Nikki’s rocket boot didn’t explode the second she put it on.

Which it wouldn’t.

Nah.

No way would I give my sister a boot that could kill her at the wrong move.

Stupid suggestion, I don’t know where some people get their ideas.

...like an explosion would kill her anyway.

“So. She’s got a suit.” Tony noted.

I didn’t reply.

“It’s awesome, right?” Nikki spoke to him. She could speak to who she wanted. Not like I would stop her- not when there was a small tiny insignificant chance I could blow up the basement if I didn’t get this right. “Bullet _ and _ fireproof. And it’s got a sword- do you see the sword?”

“Yeah, I see it.” Tony wasn’t looking at Nikki. He was still looking at me. “What’s with the suit?”

“She wanted to help.” I stated. “So I helped how I could.”

_ Like you wouldn’t let me do. _

Tony accepted the underlying comment with a nod. “Did...you want to help me with this?” He motioned back toward the crate. “Whenever you’re done with...that.”

I hesitated in answering. The boot was nearly calibrated for her standing-weight. Nikki stayed silent as I thought it over.

Tony took the silence as an answer. He made to move towards the crate.

“Mind getting started without me?” I offered, voice low.

“Yeah.” Tony answered. He gave me a smile- a genuine and thankful smile.

For the next hour, the two Starks worked. Tony would be unpacking the crate, pulling out the blueprints and old video reels. I calibrated the suit to Nikki- helped her test out the parts of the suit including flight. Tony and I would look over the data from the crate, searching for the mystery cure that Howard had unknowingly left behind.

All in silence. Relative silence, really. He had rock music playing overhead. Nikki appreciated it. I had no opinion on the matter.

Tony set up the video reel player before long. I had just finished her rocket boots. Nikki was taking off the suit- she had to learn to do it herself, she was a big girl who had plenty practice undressing herself. I set myself up in a rolling chair, looking over one of the notebooks and cross referencing it with one of my own.

As the reels went on, JARVIS turned off the music. Now the only thing to listen to was the sound of Howard Stark speaking. To cope, Tony had gotten himself a glass of scotch. I wasn’t thirsty. Tony glanced to the notebook in his hands and the ones in front of me.

“Huh.” He mumbled.

“What?” I asked, keeping my attention on this one equation that seemed to fit with what I had for the upgrade. Granted it was missing pieces but it was going the right way.

“You’ve got a lot of work in that.” Looking up at him, Tony pointed back to the notebook. “How long have you been working on this?”

“How long have you had that in your chest?” I countered.

Tony was silent. He got the answer.

_ “Everything is achievable through technology. Better living, robust health.” _ Video Howard spoke.

I held back a scoff. These videos were such bullshit. Yeah, they had a nice message. Would it really have killed Howard to give that message when he was alive? When Tony was growing up? To leave behind any nice memories for his son?

Howard Stark is a bastard.

_ “And for the first time in human history, the possibility of world peace. I’m Howard Stark, and everything you’ll need for the future can be found right here.” _ Video Howard introduced. The next clip was a blooper. “C _ ity of the Future? City of Tomorrow? City of-”  _ It cut off. 

_ “I’m Howard Stark and everything you’ll need in the future can be found right here. So, from all of us at Stark Industries, I would like to personally- Tony, what are you doing back there? What is that?” _

A smaller version of Tony. I cooed at the sight. Tony startled at hearing his name. The startle turned into something like disappointment to see himself being scolded by Howard Stark.

“He’s a baby!” Nikki cooed as she walked to my side. She sat down, careful to avoid the various papers. 

“I know.”

“What happened? He was so cute!” Nikki chuckled.

I did too.

“ _ Put that back. Put it back where you got it from. Where’s your mother? Maria? Go on. Go, go, go, go.” _ Video Howard scolded Little!Tony further. Honestly all the kid did was pick up a toy building from the display. Howard could always just put it back when Tony left. Geez, what a prick.

“ _ All right, I think we got-” _

_ “I’ll- I’ll- I’ll come in and-” _

I looked over to Tony. He was avidly looking down at Howard’s notebook. He stopped at one page, finding the rest blank. He huffed, handing the notebook to me.

Accepting it, I glanced inside. “Thanks.” I told him.

Tony accepted it with a vague hum.

_ “Are you waiting on me?” _

_ “So, from all of us at Stark Industries, I’d like to personally show you my ass.” _

“Didn’t Tony do that once?” Nikki asked.

“Sex-tape, different thing.” I corrected.

“The video never got a shot of my ass.” Tony added in.

Nikki whistled. “Dang. What did it get, then?”

“Don’t ask him that.” I scolded.

Nikki shrugged at me. She leaned forward to look around me. “Did it get a shot of your-”

“Don’t ask him that either!”

“What  _ can _ I ask him?”

“Nothing!” Tony chuckled at us. “Don’t encourage this!”

_ “Tony.” _

The mirth silenced. All three of us looked to the screen. Howard was facing the camera, looking inside it the way a father was supposed to look at their child.

_ “You’re too young to understand this right now, so I thought I would put it on film for you.” _ Howard explained, so many years too late. _ “I built this for you. And someday you’ll realise that it represents a whole lot more than just people’s inventions. It represents my life’s work. This is the key to the future. I’m limited by the technology of my time, but one day you’ll figure this out. And when you do, you will change the world. What is and always will be my greatest creation is you.” _

Out of respect to him, I didn’t look at Tony’s face as the video ended. He deserved to have a private moment with his thoughts- with his past- with memories of a broken childhood.

“What a douche.” Nikki mumbled.

“Sis.” I hissed.

“What?” Nikki asked.

“Shut up.” I stated.

“Why? You were thinking it too-”

“That doesn’t mean you can say it-”

“You’re not.” Tony stated.

Nikki and I paused. We turned to Tony, who was still staring towards the screen. His eyes shimmered with water from the reflection.

“...come again?” I asked.

“You’re not my greatest creation.” Tony stated. Before I could even begin to unpack any of it he added “You created yourself. I barely had anything to do with you. You know, I never wanted to be like him. Ever. I hate him, for all of the screw-ups he did as a dad.”

He glanced my way, quickly looking away as if the sight burned something in him.

“I made all the same mistakes.” Tony went on. “Made all the same mistakes. I ignored you, never told you I loved you or even treated you like you were my kid. When I sent you off to boarding school I was relieved, you wanna know why? Cause I could listen to my music in peace.”

I let him vent. There wasn’t really a thing to do but let him get it out. Nikki sat closer to me, providing support in case I needed it. 

“Didn’t matter. The house was quiet.” Tony admitted. “Really quiet. You have no idea how loud a kid you were.”

Nikki snorted. I elbowed her. She let out a quiet hiss.

“But you were left in that silence.” I mumbled. “It was a loud silence.”

Tony nodded, unable to say anything more. He took a deep shaking breath. Clearly, he was on the verge of an Emotion. “I was a shit dad.” He said after a long pause. “Still- you did a lot for me. More than I’d ever do for my old man.”

“That stuff didn’t matter.” I admitted simply. It hadn’t- not one bit. Even though it was all just backstory I had been given, I didn’t let it stop me from helping Tony. Yeah it made me furious how he’d treated his kid but that stop me from doing what anyone else in my shoes would do. “You needed help.”

That hadn’t made the comments any easier. Tony took it in all the same. He reached for his drink, finishing it off.

Nikki tapped my arm. Looking back, she was signing.  _ :You need to be alone?: _

I shook my head.

Nikki nodded, staying at her self-imposed station.

Gulping, I turned to Tony. “Dad.” 

He looked at me from over his empty glass.

“You know...it would be hard without you.” I admitted. Digging deep, I looked for more to say. More to say for what needed to be said now. “Life would’ve been hard without you. You...you were with me when I got these powers. I would’ve gone insane without you. You got me through a lot of that. Even when any normal person would’ve given me up for e-experiments and te-” I shuddered.

Nikki put her hand on my shoulder. She squeezed it tight. Message: I wasn’t going anywhere without a fight.

Swallowing down the fear, I pushed on. “People aren’t  _ creations _ , they’re not machines that are exact and made to perform perfect functions. They’re imperfect, they get things wrong, they make mistakes and grow. I would’ve been insulted if you said I was your greatest creation.”

Tony put his glass down. He stood up from his seat, joining Nikki and I on the floor.

“You’re a better dad now then you were then.” I encouraged him.

Tony gave me a thankful grin. A grin that was a moment’s breath from letting tears out from his eyes. If my eyes were burning, I’d deny it to my dying day. He reached out to put his hand over Nikki’s.

I let him without tensing up.

He squeezed too, pressing his thumb against the shoulder. 

A long breath flew out of my mouth. It was full of hurt I hadn’t known that I’d been carrying for awhile now.

My own hand reached out to his shoulder. I squeezed it too- giving him the same silent assurance. Tony let out the same breath I had. Beneath my hand, a tension faded.

We stayed like that for awhile, just the three of us sitting on the floor of the lab. We stayed that way long after the video reel finished. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EMOTIONS! I HATE Emotions. I hate them so Author-damn much. They suck to write but- look at them. Bonding. Being...that. Happy? Was that the word I’m looking for? I hate it.  
> Okay- okay. Nikki’s super suit now exists, along with her weapons! The gun was based on a gun a friend pointed out called Darci, I had to give it to her. It’s a sniper rifle from Destiny 2. It came with an AI, so of course Nikki had to get A.S.S.A.S.S.I.N. (had to take it when I came up with the anagram, it’s just too perfect). The material of her suit is just- well imagine Jack-Jack’s fabric and you’ve got it. Like the fic explained, it’s all lime green not the Incredibles colors.  
> Plus she’s got a sword! I gave Nikki/Darcy every weapon she’s ever wanted. What the fuck have I done.  
> For updates and shit, feel free to look at my instagram! Same username as here.


	12. Chapter 11

Now, I know what you’re thinking. 

_ ‘Becks. How do they stop you from teleporting out from the house?’ _

Easy answer! They don’t.

Not long after the depressing movie session, the two of us went back to our own devices. Tony was coming up with a plan for his reactor, backed up by the math I had come up with. Really the only thing missing was the information from Howard that he hadn’t noticed yet.

If I spent one more moment in that room with the ghost of Howard Stark I was going to lose my mind.

Nikki had an argument that I lost my mind a long time ago. Her opinion was thrown out on conjecture.

I teleported to my office. Pepper was already inside, angrily pacing. My phone buzzed in my pocket. Pulling it out, I did a quick check for ID before answering. “Yes?”

“Where are you?” Pepper demanded. Ah, so she hadn’t noticed me yet.

“Had to clean my house.” I answered. “Keep Dad from doing something stupid again, or make his previous stupid thing worse. Or Nikki from following in his footsteps.”

Pepper let out an annoyed huff. “That doesn’t mean you can just ignore my- _ geez!” _ Pepper had turned in her pacing, hearing the double effect of my voice. She spotted me on the desk- yelping and jumping back. 

I smiled politely. Moving the phone back, I ended the call. “If I work tirelessly, will I be allowed back in your good graces?”

Pepper glared at me- the way she’d always tiredly glared at Tony when he was nearing the end of her rope.

“Do you need to take Dad’s card to buy something nice for yourself?” I offered.

Pepper seethed. Her rage as fiery as her hair. She grit her teeth, glowering at me. I managed to keep a smile of a hesitant request for mercy up. “Yes. And then _ you _ will fix _ all of this _ .”

“Without hesitation, ma’am.” I nodded.

“Then get to it.” Pepper began calling another number on her phone. She walked towards the door. “I’ll send Natalia to you.”

“Oh. Thanks.” It took a lot of work to not grimace. 

Pepper left me to my lonesome. Once the door closed, I let the distaste show on my face. 

Then like the procrastinator that I was when emotions were involved, I dove straight into my work.

 

==NM2==

 

Natasha came into my office not even ten minutes later. In my opinion, she had gotten slow. I was in the middle of a phonecall with Rhodey. While doing that, my hands were typing up emails to- well- there were a lot of emails that had to be sent out. Many had been sent out in the past ten minutes.

She opened the door. Cool as you please, not even surprised that I was outside of the boundaries. SHIELD had definitely suspected I would escape first.

“Do you promise to use it for the good of the planet?” I asked Rhodey.

_ “The planet?” _

“Do you?” I pressed, clicking  _ ‘send’ _ . Natasha walked up to me, showing me the screen of the StarkPad she was using. I gave it a quick glance over. The paperwork was for the StarkExpo- I had read it the other day. Giving it one more once over I signed again.

The man sighed over the phone. _ “Yeah I promise.” _

“Promise that you will be the only person with access to it?” I added. Handing the tablet back to Natasha, she brought up more things for me to pay attention to.

Mainly, the other items from Howard Stark’s collection. Including the table top model of the original Stark Expo.

_ “You know I will.” _ Rhodey promised.

“Promise to give it a cool name?” Standing up, I walked over to the model. I pulled off the tarp over it. Natasha came up to my side. 

Rhodey actually laughed.  _ “Sure thing, Beck.” _

“Promise not to use HammerTech? Actually, no. Go ahead. Use it. Consider the embarrassment payback for the punches on behalf of Dad.” I replied with a snarky grin. Rhodey’s laugh stopped. “I grant you complete access. I’ll have the paperwork sent to your superiors soon, just remember it’s still  _ Stark tech _ . It’s not going to be a weapon.”

_ “Listen. About what happened last night-” _

“Dad was out of line.” I supplied automatically. “Deepest apologies for any trauma physical or psychological that you received as of the events-”

_ “No, not about that. I meant about you.” _ I hesitated in replying. Natasha watched with an arched eyebrow. I walked around her back to my desk.  _ “What was that with your sister?” _

“She is also an idiot. Deepest apologies for any-”

_ “Becky, don’t give me that. Whatever is going on with your dad, you know you don’t have to be dragged into it too, right?” _ Rhodey asked _. “You don’t need to fall with him.” _

“I know.” I replied easily. “He won’t. We’re Starks. We don’t go down easy.”

_ “Becky-” _

“Speaking of, I have a company fire to put out. Enjoy your HammerTech.” The phonecall ended with a click. I clicked  _ ‘send’ _ on another email. “What, no comments from Ms Super Spy?”

Natasha watched me with heavy calculation. That was all I could pick for what was going on in her mind. She merely watched me do my job. Something she’d done from the start, in fact. The only difference was now she knew that I knew who was really watching me.

“Hold on a second-” I turned to Natasha. “Is there anything work related you can do right now?”

Natasha watched, stone faced. “There are many things I could do.”

“Then get to it.” I turned back to the computer, answering more emails and sending some of my own as I went.

“You will need to leave for the StarkExpo soon.”

“Then I should get as much work done as possible, then, shouldn’t I?” I countered.

“Of course, Miss Stark.” Natasha went out of the office to do such work.

For twenty minutes, I just worked. Multitasking Queen, that’s what my superhero name should’ve been.

The door was thrown open. Sure enough, Tony walked in. He didn’t say a word on entry. He glanced toward the tabletop model of the StarkExpo, as well as the unpacked boxes around it. I paid close attention to him, and the new emails.

Pepper was informing me over text that Bill O’Reilly was talking about me. Claiming this was  _ nepotism at its finest. _

I switched on the TV installed in my office. After a quick channel change, O’Reilly was talking smack about me. All about how I was too young for the job, too inexperienced, too  _ wild  _ to lead the company.

Jokes on  _ him _ . I was 177 years old. Suck on  _ that _ for too young/inexperienced.

As for wild...I’m also a teenager in spirit. That got a wry grin from me towards the TV reporter.

Tony turned the TV off. “That’s enough of that.” He went to the dean, sitting in one of the chairs in front.

“Hmm.” I hummed, sending out another text. “Rhodes is mad at you.”

“Oh, is he?” Tony replied.

I nodded. “Got him to promise to use the suit properly. There are some bugs there- we’ll  _ iron  _ them out later.”

“Wow. Okay we’re going there.” Tony leaned back in his seat. He rubbed his hand on the side of his face, still watching me work.

His reply got a smug grin from me. “You see Pepper yet?”

“I did, yes. Did you know she was allergic to-”

“Strawberries? Yes.” I began typing a new email. “You tried apologizing with strawberries didn’t you?”

“No.” Tony replied. “I didn’t apologize. I thought I was on the way here but I wasn’t.”

“Great. You brought the one thing that could kill Pepper to a meeting where you should’ve been apologizing.” I noted. “Just tell me you didn’t say it to her face.”

“May have...”

“Dude.”

“Yeah. Bad call- Pepper fed me the riot act. I don’t see why. I mean, come on, I knew there was a correlation between her and strawberries!”

“An important correlation too. Bonus points.”

“Exactly!”

“But a correlation that equaled  _ death _ . So no bonus points.”

Tony groaned. My argument was sound.  _ Take that you fiend! _

“Did you bring something that would kill me too?” I wondered.

“No. Why would I apologize to you?” Tony questioned. Too eagerly to be sincere. He had obviously brought along something for me. I should send Pepper another apology gift on behalf of Dad if she wasn’t already getting it herself.

“Good point. Starks never apologize for anything.” I noted. To make a point, I looked over towards the table of the StarkExpo.

Tony followed my kind of sight. “What?”

“He yelled at you. In the video.” Getting up from my seat, I walked over to it.

“Dads yell at their kids sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything” Tony excused. A whole other issue that we don’t have time to unpack. For now, the plot needed to be moved along. 

“For moving a display? A thing he could’ve easily fixed later?” I questioned in a thoughtful way.

Though Tony clearly wanted to dismiss what I was saying, something gave him pause. He heard something in my tone. He got I wasn’t asking about traumatic memories- it was something else. “Where’s your head going?”

My fingers tapped the glass of the display. “Nikki tried messing with her suit. I yelled at her for it too. You yelled at me when I was trying to help build the Mach I.”

“We’re both bad people.”

“When someone messes with our Science, yes.” I confirmed. “Like my father before me, and your father before you.”

Tony glanced at the display. He pulled off the rest of the tarp to expose the full thing. “The Expo was just a showcase for him.”

“What if it wasn’t?” I questioned. “What if- the answer were looking for isn’t in any of his notes because he couldn’t figure it out. He was ‘ _ held back by the science of his time’ _ . He had the solution, but he didn’t know any of the important equations to prove it.”

Tony nodded. Calculations zooming around behind his eyes. Understanding lit up his entire face, brighter than the reactor. His eyes went from the small plaque stating  _ ‘the key to the future is here’ _ to me. He grinned with pride. “Becky. You are a star.”

“I know.” I grinned smugly back. “Ready to save your own life?”

Tony kept his grin up in confirmation. 

The door to my office opened. I huffed while turning to it.

Natasha was poking her head in. “Miss Stark?” I tilted my head. “Wheels up in twenty-five minutes.” She reported.

“Confirmed, Natashalie.” I nodded my head. “What time do I need to be at the Expo, though?”

“Not for a few hours.” Natasha answered coolly.

“Then I’m going to teleport there when I absolutely need to be. There’s life saving science to be done.” I told her. My hand went to Tony’s shoulder.

He pulled back. “Hold it. Have you ever teleported with a person before?”

“Not yet!” I cheered. “Test subject time!”

“Nope!” Tony pulled away from my hand just before I vanished back to the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who is excited for Disney+?! I’m looking forward to Marvel stuff- but let’s be honest, I’m gonna be hyperfocused on Lady & the Tramp- it’s about dogs guys! Real dogs!


End file.
